


Rogue One Ending Game Change

by AnneLawrence



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Alternate Ending, Gen, Minor Character Death, Minor Violence, Serious Injuries, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-26
Updated: 2018-02-26
Packaged: 2019-03-24 04:10:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 27,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13803126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnneLawrence/pseuds/AnneLawrence
Summary: The events described occur, in the main, immediately following the end scene of the movie Rogue One: a Star Wars Story (2016). The story presents not a new ending but an extended ‘what if?’ epilogue.





	Rogue One Ending Game Change

**Author's Note:**

> My goal with this story was to over-turn the grief and dreadful disappointment I felt watching all that death at the end of the movie. I needed a more hopeful end for the characters I’d come to love. I have introduced new characters, for which I apologise to fans of canon, but I was also aware of the gender imbalance in the movie which I wanted to redress.  
> Thank you Elena for being my beta and AO3 Sensei, wouldn't have done it without you. Nor without your support and enthusiasm Allegra. Love you both always.

**Chapter One: Down and Out**

Aboard the Rogue One en route to Scarif, Cassian takes from his bulging pack the Empire tech he stole on his last mission which he hadn’t ‘gotten around to handing in’.  He issues each of the crew with a stick the size of a packet of gum.

 “I’ve set them all to one coordinate on Scarif’s surface. It’ll make our surprise attack easier if they don’t even know we’ve landed,” he explains. “We’ll all arrive down there at once. But you have to be aware, this is a prototype, untested. I can’t guarantee it’ll work safely.”  He then takes out a bigger silver oblong and holds it up for everyone to see. People are standing or sitting around, some checking out the new toy, others watching Cassian. Something about the set of his shoulders tells those who know him well that he’s about to say something important. “This is the Master Controller,” he waves it like a baton then hands it slowly to Jyn. “In acknowledgement that she’s leading this mission,” he continues, he looks around at the crew, “I’m giving it to you, Jyn.” He rests it in her hand, searching her face as if he’s going to learn something there.

She looks at the unmarked thing he’s placed in her hand. It’s slightly warm. Then she notices the red LED blinking at one end. The surprise on her face at his words is replaced by a quizzical look as she meets Cassian’s eyes. He nods his head in acknowledgement then turns, busying himself with repacking his bag. She scans the cramped interior of their craft quickly, a few people are turning away, busying themselves like Cassian. There is an air of watchfulness from the rest. Well she’s used to being the centre of attention, let them watch, she thinks. She comes back to the object resting in her still outstretched hand, the blinking metal box. She stares at it then takes a deeply indrawn breath, squares her shoulders, and wraps her fingers slowly around it. Looking up again, she finds Cassian is leaning against the equipment shelf, legs out in front of him, crossed at the ankle, arms also crossed, looking at her with mild amusement. He’s enjoying this, she thinks. The words of the Rebel Alliance leader from 48 hours previously hang in the air between them: outcast, self-absorbed, on your way to an Imperial gaol. A brief frown visible only to Cassian mars her features as she glances down again at what he’s given her then back up uncertainly. His face is not unfriendly but it’s impassive, eyes unwavering, looking calmly into hers, giving her nothing.

A gaggle of thoughts course through her mind as she meets his gaze, not least of which is you bastard. And then, it is as if everything, all that she has seen and done, learned about and learned to deal without, have been leading her to this. Here. Now. She’s learned strong leadership skills from Saw, one of the best, she admits to herself. Also, any hesitation she shows now will undermine the confidence the Rogues have in her. But is Cassian really trusting her this much? She bites her lip. She knows she trusts Cassian skills as a strategist in covert operations. Even if he tried to kill her father earlier, she knows it, no matter what he says now. Does she trust him? Her brow wrinkles. She releases her breath and grips the Controller harder, fingers going white with the tension, then easing. Her expression clears. She smiles.

With a simple nod she holds up the Controller as if it is a talisman, a lucky mascot, symbol of their mission: it is untested, they don’t know if it’s going to work and there are no guarantees. It’s perfect. Turning she looks at – yes, _her_ Rogues, meeting each pair of eyes. There are a few nods but mostly just calm, confident faces. These people trust her with their lives. It’s a sobering moment. Jyn lets out a shaky laugh. There is something new inside her, she can feel it, deep down. Something strong, something right.

She realises Cassian is explaining more about the tech to her. She brings her attention back, looks at what she had thought was a plain oblong but turns out to have function keys and settings. Cassian tells her about these, that the Controller is currently set on the ‘select all’ function, how to change the coordinates, how to set it for multiple destinations. Jyn’s attention never wavers. She asks him about the small button on the side next to the blinking LED.

 “It’s a quick send button that you can press once everything’s set up, the Controller’s designed for combat situations. Once it’s all set up, you press the lock button then nothing will happen, none of the settings will change and to activate it you just press the quick send.” Cassian is standing over Jyn pointing out these features as she listens. Jyn’s used to tech stuff but she’s never held the lives of her fellow crew members in her hands like this before. Panic button, she thinks, it’s a panic button.

She wants to ask ‘what if it doesn’t work and we’re all splattered through space?’ Instead she simply says “Right, got it,” and shoves the innocuous looking little box into a pocket of her pants. She doesn’t need it yet and she needs to stop thinking about all the risks when the time comes to use it.

As it turns out, they don’t need to use it. Bodhi’s ruse of using the shuttle, and his inside knowledge as an Imperial pilot, get them down onto Scarif’s surface undetected. Jyn keeps the Master controller on her, quietly moving among her crew during their tense arrival to give assurance but also ensuring they all keep the little oblongs with them ‘for luck’. The crew are bolstered by this small act of symbolism, that they’re all carrying a bit of stolen Imperial secret technology which means something else known only to them. She doesn’t question it but in the back of Jyn’s mind something settles to rest.

Later

On the surface, during their exploration of Scarif’s Library files and while they wait for K to find where the Death Star plans might be, Jyn amuses herself by searching the facility’s blue prints. She’s already studied the simplified version she’d lifted from the Resistance base – well she was a thief, wasn’t she? At the time she’d just taken it because the pompous ass that was ‘talking’ to her had been so smug. But, on the journey, she’d taken it out, plugged it into a computer port and studied it til she’d learned all she could. Saw had taught her the hard way the power of good prep before you went into a new environment. She’d lost three crew members that time and was still bitter. She isn’t going to lose anyone on this trip.

Relishing in the much finer detail of the Library’s schematics, she’s distracted from K’s lack of progress and Cassian’s mounting frustration by some very interesting details. She appreciates yet again her ability to extrapolate from simple 3D graphics and detailed 2D diagrams to build a clear picture in her mind of what something looks like. This was the innate skill that had allowed her father to become the Empire’s best developmental engineer. It is a skill she’s inherited, honed over the years, learning from Saw and others she worked with later on. It allows her to see now what is concealed amongst all the pipes, electrical ducting, detail about weight bearing loads and construction materials. She is stunned by its simplicity, how it sits in plain sight. The Imperial architects designed the Library as a bunker, a giant standalone cube capable of being sealed off and remaining functional, independent of the outside world, with external walls resistant to all known forms of weaponry. Looking closer she sees that the Cube, as she now thinks of it, would have a finite supply of consumables (air, food, water) but the heating and power support systems would still operate for - and here she makes a quick mental calculation – thousands of years? She wonders whether it was arrogance or naïve optimism that had lead those early Imperialists to think the knowledge stored here would be needed for that long.

Bored with looking at blue prints, she feels something against her leg, for a second unsure what it is. She fishes the Master controller out of her camo pants. She’s forgotten about putting it there. Cassian is still haranguing K and she knows she’s going to have to step in in a minute. Not that K is getting frustrated, but she feels more secure working with a calm and happy Cassian. For the moment she plays idly with the Controller, touching its sides and waking up the illuminated display. She turns and brings something up on the computer monitor. Glancing at it and then down at the Controller she punches something in. The display changes and she smiles contentedly. Hearing Cassian’s voice reach a new level of heat, she shoves the Controller back in her pocket and looks up, eyebrows raised. Cassian’s face is red and he’s jabbing a finger repeatedly at K’s metallic chest. She moves to join them, suppressing another smile as she listens to Cassian rolling out curses, some of which even she doesn’t understand.

Much later

Clinging to Cassian, Jyn tries not to think about the Rogue One crew lying dead and dying all around them. She can hear the words that will flash their way across the light years to Resistance Base: _Rogue mission successful, plans obtained. Crew extraction process failure, some personnel and equipment losses_. It would be followed at some point by a fuller report with a list of all their names. The elation she’s felt at their success, the Death Star plans off and away in to the ether far above them, is now gone, leaving her empty. She struggles to take in the enormity of all that has happened. Instead she just feels numb. She’s proud to have been part of something bigger, in however small a way. She doesn’t have any time for regrets. It isn’t about the glory. It‘s about vindication. By her actions she has erased any doubt about her father’s allegiance. With an absurd sense of timing, Jyn realises she’s giving her life to achieve this for her father and, even though he hasn’t lived to enjoy it, she is filled with deep satisfaction. She’s glad Cassian is here with her. Together they watch the towering wave of destruction roll towards them, blocking everything out.

If anyone capable of surviving were watching, they would see the twinned outline of Cassian and Jyn wink out just before the wave strikes. The bodies - alive and dead - that had lain strewn around them disappear in the same instant. One moment they are there, the next they are gone as the beach becomes a maelstrom of water, sand, rock.

A millisecond and a short distance away, bodies materialise into existence. They lie exactly as they have been on the beach, but inside the Library. In the low lighting they form bizarre shapes amongst the silent consoles, up against walls, under blinking pieces of electronic equipment. Many remain immobile, limbs at impossible angles, sand and bodily fluids leaking slowly onto a gleaming, dust free floor. But all are silent. Dead or unconscious.

Jyn is one of the first to regain her senses. Cassian still lies gripped in her arms. She reasons that they must have landed – if that is the correct term – appeared? - and fallen sideways. Somehow it seems important that she understand where they are but it feels like too much effort. She closes her eyes. She opens them again. Is it much later or only a little while? She raises her head, moves to sit up but stops as the room tilts sideways and unconsciousness again beckons. Lying carefully back down she rests for a while, looking at the ceiling. It is white and featureless. Gingerly she lifts just her head this time, looks about slowly, swallows down nausea. Did it work? Yes! She heaves a huge sigh, almost a sob, the sudden adrenaline rush fueled by the uncertainty makes her limbs shudder. She expected the worst – dismembered bits of body, organs, goo plastered all over the place, the prototype tech proving you couldn’t trust the Empire any longer. But it hadn’t happened. Instead it seems to have worked perfectly. Screwing her eyes shut tight she draws in a halting breath. Needing to hold onto something solid she grips Cassian, pulling him close. Head buried in his chest, she allows his scent, his anchoring warmth, to envelope her. Her breath slows, deepens, mirroring Cassian’s, as she feels his steady pulse beneath her forehead where it presses into his neck. She knows she has to move, but not yet, just a minute more.

She allows herself to think about what happened there on the beach, when she’d thought herself overwhelmed, cognitive processes shut down. Maybe that was what had allowed her subconscious, the part that operates on autopilot in the background, to have the chance to be heard? Had this part of her predicted the scenario all along and prepared for it, prompting her to hit ‘select all’ in the Library when she was playing with the Master controller, figuring out how it worked? Her practical, rational self wanted to plug in an actual rather than made up location as she explored how it worked. But it was the cunning lizard brain that prompted her to look up and punch in the coordinates of where she’d been standing - the interior of the Library Cube - without really thinking about it. She hadn’t even thought about whether the gizmo had a function that prevented bodies from materialising half inside walls or chairs, nor whether the Cube’s thick walls would prevent the untested system from working at all so they’d end up smeared across its exterior. Considering such scenarios would have meant thinking the unthinkable about how their mission might end. And yet some part of her had thought it. In those few seconds of quiet as she and Cassian yielded to the inevitable, that enormous terrible wave rushing towards them impossible to comprehend, her lizard brain had moved once again. She‘d let go her death grip on Cassian, shoved one hand into her trouser pocket and pressed the panic button.

She notices there aren’t enough people lying around to include all the Alliance troops who arrived later. Of course, she realises, they didn’t have the prototypes with them. She tries to concentrate on those it seems she has saved; all the Rogues, including their dead. She wonders if it also worked on K. She hopes so, they may need him. She lowers Cassian gently to the floor. The imminent danger is over. She must move her aching body, quell this nausea and take stock. People are going to be confused, injured, grief stricken. Jyn still does not know if the walls are capable of withstanding her father’s weapon, but maybe, she thinks, just maybe they are going to be all right.

  
**Chapter Two: Inside**

 Jyn becomes aware of sounds. Her ears are ringing but there’s also some sort of low background hum. Her mouth is slimy and there’s a strange tingling feeling in her teeth. But the nausea is fading, leaving her with a dull headache. She sits up slowly and looks around. She can see no one moving but at least a few people are breathing. Better take a look, she thinks, before the worst of the wounded wake up.

She attempts to stand, finding she has to support herself with a chair to do so. Her limbs feel like jelly and as she moves, other hurts and bruises make themselves known. She collapses on the chair for a moment, grunting in pain. Then, moving haltingly, she approaches the first Rogue, the one lying on his back with his leg at a weird angle. Kneeling she checks for pulse, respiration, obvious bleeding. He’s relatively OK. She moves on. Her field first aid skills are rudimentary but she knows the value of the emergency triage system; she needs to check everyone and decide who needs treatment ASAP, who can wait and who is going to be beyond saving. That last is the hard part. It helps that although she’s fought with these people and almost died with them, she doesn’t really know them well. In fact, she decides, she’s the only person that can do this. Cassian would be too close to them to be able to be rational about it. She checks back and Cassian’s still lying there breathing slowly, as if he’s just sleeping. She hopes he wakes up soon. Rising stiffly, she goes back to the console, looks around for a while trying to find something, anything, to mark the crew with. Finally, she accidentally activates a drawer which glides out silently. She rummages until she finds a stylus. Crude, but it will have to do. Methodically, and with rising frustration at her own slowness, she works her way through the Rogues, using the stylus to mark either a big black tick, cross or line on their chests.

Her limbs start to drag. I must be really losing it, she thinks, I can smell barbecue. The odour of cooked meat increases as she rounds a wall and comes across two more bodies. She recognises the shape of Chirrut, searches increasingly frantic, for a pulse. None. She looks to the lump she’s been avoiding: Baze. The smell is coming from him. He’s so burned up by Stormtrooper blasters that he’s only recognisable by his size and stupid-damned big-arsed gun. Holding one sleeve across her mouth and nose she shuffles over to Baze. She can see his chest rise and fall. Her hand reaches out to touch but falters, drops. She hopes he stays unconscious, the pain from all these dreadful burns is going to be impossible, even for him, when he wakes. It’s unbearable. She can’t bring herself to look at him properly, every time she tries her gaze falters as she tries to go past his burned wrecked arm to his face. But he must wake sometime, he must. She uses her sleeve to wipe her face. It is wet. Am I crying? she thinks. Too many lost, too many dead. How are we ever going to survive? 

 “Sorry,” Jyn says out loud, “I… I can’t do this anymore. I think I need to…” There’s blood on her cheek and it smears as she scrubs at her face. For a moment she looks down at her hands. They’re filthy, she thinks. She rubs them down the legs of her pants, can’t seem to stop rubbing them, over and over again. But then she stops herself, making fists and hitting her legs rhythmically instead.  “Right. Good. Right.” She takes a sharp intake of breath. “We really need to find some medical supplies. And you guys all need to start waking up so I can stop talking to myself.” Pulling her shoulders back, with a small smile that is more grimace, she takes another steadying breath.

She heads back to what she now thinks of as her chair, looks around, sits down firmly. She activates the console and begins a search for answers. Within short order she has a list of things that are immediately apparent. She writes them down with fast efficient key strokes, because that’s what good leaders do. It has nothing to do with the fact that she keeps losing track of them in her head - yes keep telling yourself that, she thinks.

 Jyn’s List

  * we are alive (except for those who already died) so the Cube did withstand the Death Star
  * there appears to be minimal damage to the Cube
  * we have power and air – so far
  * I can find no functional outside sensors so for the moment we are blind
  * all the communication systems seem to be down
  * the source of outside air appears to now be closed off
  * there seems to be no automatic means of generating new air
  * we will need to find a way to the surface soon or begin to generate our own air and - more importantly - a way of scrubbing the out CO2 or we’re all going to die of CO2 poisoning before we die of lack of O2
  * K is non-functional - we’re never going to escape without his capacity to quickly analyse massive amounts of data
  * there are wounded and dying among us as well as the already dead
  * there is a red alarm flashing and beeping intrusively with a countdown that seems to indicate dire consequences within 90 minutes.



 Jyn does not know how deeply they are buried under the rubble, how or when they are going to be able to get to the surface; she will overcome those obstacles if and when they make it that far.  She sets herself two immediate tasks:

  1. to find at least one other functioning Rogue so that they can help administer first aid to the crew using her triage system, while she finds answers to the other most pressing problems
  2. to resurrect K so they can figure out ASAP what the alarm means and how to fix it.



The alarm is worrying her but she decides she can’t do anything about it right now. Slouched over the console she realises she’s hearing the small movements of people waking up. Turning she confirms that the man closest to her is moving. She hears groans, low muttering, a person swearing: the soft sounds of suffering.  Then quiet sobbing. She’s finding it difficult to move now she’s stopped but she’s startled into action by shocking screams - unintelligible words, high pitched, heart rending, repeated over and over and over. Oh God.

Galvanised, she lurches towards the sound, almost tripping on a foot sticking out from behind the console. Thankfully it’s attached to a body that is marked with a tick. The screams are muffled now but she follows them. She passes Rogues lying or kneeling up, bent over retching, one helping others. Nausea seems to be a generalised side effect. Luckily there doesn’t seem to be a lot of actual vomit which is a mercy, she thinks, in this closed environment. She rounds a corner and locates the source of the screaming.

A man she’s marked with a cross is writhing, holding the raw stump of his missing leg. There’s little blood, blasters have a cauterising effect, but the pain must be intense. He sinks slowly back down, relaxing onto the floor as she approaches, the moans subsiding into gurgling suddenly cut off. Thank goodness, he’s fainted, she thinks. After a quick check of him, she seeks out the person who’d been helping the vomiting people. She asks “What’s your name?”

 “Dee” is the curt reply. She fires off a couple of other questions and decides he seems compos mentis.

 “Leave these guys, they’re all right. I’m going to see if I can find someone else to help but can you go look at that guy through there, he’s bleeding. Do you know anything about first aid?”

 “Yes. You apply pressure and yes… we all have emergency first aid training.”

 “Good. Well go. I’ll try to get you some supplies as well. In the meantime, use what you can, here’s my jacket, use yours too. Well, get going soldier.” For a moment she thinks he’s going to rap out a smart ‘Yes sir’ or even ‘Yes ma’am’ but there are no ranks amongst the Rogues and although Cassian dubbed her leader, she has no title and doesn’t feel like a sir or a ma’am. She watches as he sets to work. She waits for him to ask her questions about what’s happened, how did we get here etc. But he doesn’t, just gets on with the job at hand. These Rogues keep surprising her.

She knows she’ll have to have some sort of debrief/explanatory session but she can’t deal with that now. They’re in survival mode, literally. If they’re lucky there will be time for understanding and processing it all later. When I’ve sorted out that damned alarm, it’s getting louder surely?

She starts a systematic search for K. She finds another couple of comparatively uninjured, functional Rogues and sets them up with Dee as the Emergency Triage Team. Unknown to Jyn, Dee and the others are thinking exactly as she’d suspected, their minds are full of questions. While they work with the wounded and dying they wonder why she isn’t helping them, but they don’t question her directly. The three Triage team members, Dee, Arro and Taidu, hold brief conversations between themselves in low voices.

 “You ask her,” Arro whispers.

 “No, you,” Taidu hisses back.

 “Why don’t you both shut it and help me with this haemostasis?”

 “Yeah sorry Dee.” Arro jabs Taidu with an elbow and gets on with the task in front of them.

But Taidu cannot seem to let it go. “We trust her, don’t we?”

 “Yeah, I guess, I mean Cassian made her leader so he must know something.”

 “Good enough for me, she’s our leader, she brought us here, didn’t she? I mean we were all dead for sure. Here, hold this leg up more,” says Dee.

 “Yeah, I trust that she knows what she’s doing. She must be doing something important,” this is Arro the smaller of the three, his Scots burr still clearly audible despite the whispering.

  Taidu injects. “Well I’m a soldier I’m used to being kept in the dark and fed bullshit, although I reckon us Rogues have a few more cynics amongst us than the usual crop of mushrooms.”

 “Yeah,” Arro agrees with the larger man, as he always does Dee is beginning to realise.

 “Yeah. Hopefully she’s doing something about that bloody alarm, it’s getting on my nerves.” Hmm, thinks Dee, is Taidu’s default state always this negative?

A practical person of few words, Dee attempts to finally cut off this conversation by saying “Well she doesn’t seem too worried so it can’t be anything major. Thanks, let’s get her into that room over there with the beds in it. One two three up.”

 “What I’d like to know is how the fuck we got in ‘ere.” This is Jav Mefran, the last member of the new Team, and also the oldest and most grizzled. His face is slashed by scars, which stretch down each arm in regular patterns of three. His voice rough, but articulate in his own way.

 “You and me and all the rest of us put together. But that can wait, there’s more wounded here,” Dee raps out, “let’s get on with it.”

 “Here there’s some bandages and dressings and stuff in here.” Arro is rummaging amongst shelving lining one wall of the room they are using.

 “Great. Any fluids?”

 “You mean these bags of stuff?”

 “Awesome, lets save some lives.”

 Jyn is grateful that they ask no questions. This is a time for action because allowing themselves to start thinking, letting their reality sink in, is… unthinkable. Her search is finally over when she finds K, totally obscured lying under a corner console. She crawls in to reach him, his dark, smooth surface reflecting no light. K is non-functional, no movement, nothing. She tries not to think of the word ‘dead’. She sits back on her haunches, cracking her head on the underneath of the console with a loud smack.

 ‘Ow!’, she rubs her head, it hurts more. ‘Ow! Ow! Ow!’ she knows she’s shouting. She smashes a fist on Ks torso in frustration. Now her hands hurt as well. This time her ows are quieter, tailing off into chuckles. If I don’t laugh I’m going to cry, she thinks, leaning to rest her head on K’s immobile chest. The metal is cold, unyielding. I need you K, she mutters, like a prayer. Sitting up again, slowly this time, she uses her sleeve and some spit to wipe the scorch marks - and other stuff she doesn’t want to examine too closely - off the small silver plate on his torso, under the right arm. It reveals a long string of numbers and letters - K’s serial number. She peers at it, reads it out aloud. Shakes her head, peers at it again and reads out a slightly different string. Frowning she turns her head and looks out between the legs of the console, across the room. For the first time she notices how the concealed lighting in the ceiling gives the stark whiteness a bluish tinge. Her view from down here is distorted, bisected by the slim silver legs of consoles like a tiny artificial forest dotted with the lumpish grey chairs with their star shaped black feet and neat black wheels. Their geometric cleanliness contrasts with the dirty browns and dull green random blobs of Rogues. What am I doing, she asks herself? Focusing, she sees most people are moving now, with exceptions - one of which is quite close to her, lying prone, disturbingly still. There’s no one else near. Those that are up and moving around all look busy tending others. She looks away from the – person not body - then turns back, shuffles out and is about to get to rise when she catches the eye of one of the Triage Team, the big scary looking one. She nods at what she is definitely _not_ ‘the body’, giving a slight shake of her head. Seeing that the medic has understood, she shuffles back inside. That alarm is definitely getting louder, we’re running out of time, she swallows. Her mouth is very dry, another thing not to think about.

What _am_ I doing? she wonders to herself, I must hold it together. She can see the red glow of that damned flashing warning light reflecting off the wall. It seems to be flashing faster. “God dammit we need you, K,” she can’t get a grip on him to shake him, probably wouldn’t be able to move him anyway. My brain isn’t working, she thinks. ‘Come on Jyn, work it out’ – she hears her father’s voice. Right, OK. She hears Saw’s voice too, gruff, demanding: ‘What’s the situation?’ She runs through a quick check. Cursing softly, she reaches into a pocket, pulls out the pad she’d put there when she’d found the stylus, writes down the 21-alphanumeric string of K’s serial number and checks it three times. She crawls out and takes it to the computer sitting above, on the console.

She starts searching the Library’s database, trying different search terms, rejecting all the files she finds, methodically opening and skimming, forcing herself to go slower so she doesn’t miss anything, trying to quell her rising panic. She knows that within the four walls of the Cube lies the entire knowledge of the Empire and before that, the Republic. She also knows that K is an Imperial Droid. After what seems like hours but is in fact only 4 minutes, she finds a diagnostic program which appears relevant but needs a physical connection from the unit to the mainframe. Crawling back under again, she tries to drag K out but he is too heavy for her to move. She discovers she can’t even lift up an arm. She crawls back out and walks around in small circles hand on head, looking at the floor. She stops, looks up, sees several ambulant but still injured Rogues, one with a makeshift bandage around half his head, the material looking remarkably like her jacket. They are staring down at the now covered body, talking to each other. So, it _was_ a body. She sighs. The guy with the bandage looks haggard but the other person seems OK. She goes over and asks if they are feeling up to helping her. Bandage guy just looks at her blankly, eyes dull.

 “It’s OK. You sit over here, in case we need you, I’ll help. What do you need Leader Jyn?”

Wow that sounds like… Jyn doesn’t quite know what it sounds like apart from uncomfortable, but she supposes it’s better than Ma’am. The Rogue’s name is Stordan Tonc. She remembers because she’d fought with a Tonc years ago. Probably not the time to ask if they’re related. Instead they try to drag K out, quickly realising they need more help, which Stordan goes to find.  In short order, Jyn has four hefty Rogues to assist, two under the console either side of K, their backs to the wall using their legs to push, and two outside each hauling on an arm.  Heaving and swearing, with Jyn staying out of the way, trying not to give ‘helpful advice’ and worrying one of them is going to rupture something, they finally manage to roll K out and sit him up next to the console. Jyn connects the extendable lead she pulls out of the dock into the socket on K’s chest. The Rogues move off but hang around, watching. She smiles in thanks at them, she may need them again. All four slide down the wall to rest.

The dehydration’s making it hard for us to function let alone recover, Jyn thinks. She’s finding it hard to ignore the stickiness in her mouth and it’s increasingly difficult to swallow. Finding a source of water is on the list but not yet, not yet. She’s hopes that the Triage Team has located some medical supplies, fluids of some kind, at least for those worst off. She wipes her forehead. It’s dry.

She runs the diagnostic program. “C’mon, c’mon,” she mutters, pacing, her movements reflected in four pairs of eyes.  After a few minutes, with a wave of relief she sees lights begin fluttering on and off on K. He is rebooting. She sits down nearly slipping off the edge of the chair, wiping her mouth again with the back of her hand. Her lips are scratchy, sore, starting to dry out. She watches K, waiting for the background processes to complete then decides to take a quick walk over to the main console to check of the alarm situation. It’s getting to hysterical stage with the flashing. On the display next to the LED the countdown clicks over to 119 minutes with a hideous whooping noise. Crap, she thinks, covering her ears, this is NOT HELPING. She randomly punches icons on the console’s smooth surface. Nothing. The alarm pounds in her head making it hard to think. In the background she can hear Rogues swearing, shouting but drowned out by the pummeling sound. She sees in her peripheral vision several clutching their heads, blocking their ears. She shouts a “sorry!” and becomes more frantic, moving off the console onto the other buttons around the flashing LED. Suddenly there is silence. Thank god. She huffs out a breath. The alarm is still ringing. She shakes her head. No, it’s not, it must be in her head. Her throat is now so parched it’s become excruciating to swallow. She wipes her eyes. They are sore as well, not to mention the thumping in her head as if the alarm is still going. Stop it, she thinks, imagine how the rest of the crew are feeling, they’re injured most of them. Right, focus, she pulls herself back to the job at hand. The LED is still counting down. Scratching her head, she wonders if there’s a bypass she can install to wake K up more quickly. When she goes back to him though she finds console telling her the reboot was successful.

But if K is conscious he doesn’t seem to be able respond. Or move. Various small lights on him go on and off in increasing rapidity and complexity. Jyn wonders how they manage to communicate frustration but that’s what she’s seeing she’s sure of it. She can hear K’s voice talking at her in her head, explaining in that maddening indisputable tone of his that this proves she’s technologically incompetent and giving her a percentage of her eventual likely failure. She starts more random punching of buttons on this console, having just had it work on that other one. She knows it makes no sense and she’s getting desperate but it’s all she can think of right now, until she can make the pulsing pain in her head stop and concentrate on running the diagnostics again.

She’s trying not to think about the countdown going on silently, behind her. She keeps jabbing. Suddenly the Cube is filled with the sound of K describing in detail what he thinks of humanity, current company NOT excepted, reciting a list of the many and various likelihoods of their imminent deaths. OK good, gotta remember that mute button thing. Why am I not better than this, she thinks, do I even have a clue what I’m doing? Am I really going to be able to do any of this? Why isn’t Cassian awake? He’d be so much better at this.

K’s ranting is hurting her head, each word like a turn of the knife, right there over her left eye. She knows he can see her, is fully rebooted even if he still can’t seem to move. She holds a hand up over the mute button in silent threat. Even though his head is below the level of the console, he must be able to see her because he stops the rant. Huh, he must be using the system’s sensors within the Cube, thinks Jyn, turning around to check that her hand isn’t in his line of sight, and then seeing all the small black shiny circles she hadn’t noticed before, in every corner of the ceiling, on walls and even a couple on consoles: environment sensors that would give the Cube’s system information about a whole range of things, including vision.

She decides talking is not the way and starts typing on the console: _I really, really need your help K, you are the only one who can do it, I need you to find out what that alarm is, the countdown, without saying anything to anyone else, or they_ _’_ _ll panic. Can you do that?_ Then she deletes it in case someone walking past and sees it over her shoulder. She waits, repressing the urge to glance around. K is still grumbling to himself through the speakers, unmoving. Did he even ‘hear’ her message? Damn. She’s about to retype it when a single word blips up on the screen and disappears: _Yes_.

Out loud she says “Good. OK do you need anything else? I need to check on Cassian.” This last she’s added as an excuse really, she doesn’t have the time to baby sit K, there are too many things to do.

 “No, I’m fine, of course I don’t need you,” he clips out. It doesn’t seem like K’s winning personality has changed at all, she thinks, even though hearing his voice is a relief. “Thank you anyway,” he adds. Huh. Scratch that, maybe he’s improved.

While K collates the most urgent information about their status and starts analyzing it, Arro and Taidu from the triage team come up to report. She leads them away quickly when they start to express their concern about K; bad for moral, why do we need an Imperial Droid etc. Are they displacing their grief, anger and desire for retribution onto K? She listens, but then tells them that they need K, that he’s vital for their survival. She avoids mentioning the countdown and that they’re probably all going to be dead within the next hour if K can’t fix the problem. They all heard the alarm go off, can still see the blipping red light. Jyn assumes because she hasn’t seemed disturbed by it, the crew has decided either she has it under control or that it’s not important, which is what she’d hoped. She’s glad her frantic attempts to mute the alarm earlier haven’t betrayed her. She suggests they get on with their treatment of the wounded.

She misses Cassian. Even though they weren’t exactly friends to start off with, she came to respect his opinion, his ability to think on his feet. He could also handle K. She realises that he is no longer lying beside ‘her’ chair. The medics must have moved him. Dee notices she’s looking around, perhaps she looks a bit lost, because they come up and tell her quietly that he’s been moved into the Med Bay, and that he seems to have some sort of head injury because he’s still in a coma.

Med Bay? When did they get one of those? She’s losing her grip. She thanks the Rogue, runs her fingers through her hair, trying to work out what is the next most urgent thing on the list. Her hand comes away sticky. Urgh, it’s disgusting. God, people are lying dead, injured and I’m worrying about my hair, she thinks. She longs for a shower but just a drink would be nice. She feels like her throat is on fire. Everyone’s talking really quietly because no one has much of a voice. We’re all drying out, she thinks. And she must smell as bad as everyone else too. She pulls out her hair and slowly ties it back up again. She notices the air’s become thicker, the smell is actually getting pretty ripe. She takes time to look around properly for the first time, taking a mental inventory. She sees the staring eyes of people as post-disaster shock sets in. These are trained soldiers that have seen a lot of action. But today with everything they’ve seen and done, topped with their atoms having been taken apart and reassembled or whatever happened during that transportation jump – Jyn has no clue and decides she’s not going to let that worry her now – followed by the down time of most of them at this point, it is too much. They’re sitting around in small groups or singly, some still lying down, most with nothing to do but watch their suffering or dead comrades. Things could all turn very bad. Very bad indeed.

K seems to be busy although it’s hard to tell given he’s not moving, but images, read outs, plans are flitting across the screen next to him at an amazing speed. She notices the same is happening on multiple screens about the room. Jyn leaves him to it. If he doesn’t come up with something, if they only have two hours left to live, then so be it. They’ll live it well, go out together calmly without giving up, helping and caring for each other. Not like the death some of them had on the beach, the result of that foul and evil weapon. No, she’s not going to do this now either, berate the twisted humanity that has brought them to this. She’s going to go out looking at her people showing each other acts of kindness and compassion. Walking passed the countdown, she moves around amongst the awake and mentally alert, sets several up at a console to use the Library’s online resources to diagnose and offer treatment options now the Med Team has stabilised the worst cases.  She gets others to start an inventory of the contents of the Cube. You never know, K could come through. She asks for those with engineering knowledge or understanding to help K, but doesn’t explain what he’s searching for – it’s need to know, she decides, and they don’t need to know. Yet.

It turns out that K does require assistance by way of humans to ‘go look at actual stuff’ as he puts it.  So, she’s pleased her strategy of giving people things to do is more meaningful than she’d hoped. She wanders in to the other room. Here she finds the Med Bay. Two Rogues with field injury treatment experience, Befrik, a chunky former emergency medic and the much slighter Pao, a civilian nurse, are sewing someone up. She watches for a minute. Befrik looks taller than Pao but Jyn sees that he isn’t, he’s just much more heavy set but his meaty fingers are incredibly dexterous. He makes it look effortless, sewing up wounds, clamping spurting vessels, face impassive. Pao’s long slim hands are such a contrast. She moves with economy, anticipating Befrik’s needs and silently handing him instruments, holding down swabs to stop bleeding, murmuring when Befrik looks up frowning disapproval at what he’s been handed. Although Jyn can’t see Pao’s face and those huge soulful eyes that unnerve her, Befrik must have read something there – probably that this is the most suitable instrument they have for whatever they are doing and he’ll have to make do. He shrugs and takes it. Jyn leaves them to it.

She finds Dee behind her, who is also in here, marking things on a tablet, taking inventory. They tell her that several of the people Jyn allocated to the hopeless category could actually be helped but two of the people in her dire need category have died. Despite Jyn thinking it is a waste of their energy, several of the medics have opted to drag the dead into a far-off room. They want to show Jyn. She squashes her mounting panic about what’s happening out there with K, and follows. Everyone needs to know that she’s their calm and collected leader with whom they can talk, that she will care, even about their dead. Sometimes she feels like she’s just making this stuff up and at some point they’ll realise she’s not a leader at all. But then, maybe all leaders start out like this, learning as they go along, she thinks, as with any skill. They take her through several more rooms – all of them are pretty cold but the one they end up in does seems colder. (Later K confirms it’s the coldest because it’s beneath the data stacks that are held at 50 degrees Kelvin for maximum data longevity and minimal power usage). It also seems easier to breathe in here, despite the bodies.

Her capacity for surprise, for feelings of much at all, is so reduced she doesn’t blink when she re-enters the room designated by the Triage Team as the Recovery Room, coming to a stop in front of Baze. It’s a small room off the main Med Bay, the only room she’s seen so far that has bunks lining its walls. He appears to be in some sort of stupor, the eye that is visible amongst the raw flesh is unseeing. He is propped up against one wall looking like something out of a horror story - or a butcher’s shop. The smell of roasted meat almost overwhelms her stomach. She doesn’t react except to say a quiet hello. It seems to Jyn that there’s a smile there, inside all that raw meat. She’s seen some horrendous injuries but facial ones are the worst. How is he still conscious, she marvels? He sits beside a prone, blanket wrapped Chirrut.

 “Induced analgesic euphoria,” Pao says at her elbow. They must have finished their surgery. She can move so quietly, Jyn thinks, feeling tiny beside her. She notices the two patients are connected by a thin, plastic tube full of red coloured liquid, vein to vein: Baze is donating blood to Chirrut. The blind monk must not be dead - she sends up a prayer of thanks not sure exactly where to – but he’s not awake either. Pao explains that he has severe internal bleeding which needs urgent surgery. They think Chirrut has somehow managed to slow his own bleeding and is now in some sort of trance which also appears to be controlling Baze’s pain, because they haven’t given Baze any drugs. Pao explains in her sibilant accent that with Chirrut’s vital signs as they are he shouldn’t be alive. It’s then that she notices their hands are also entwined. The Force, what an astounding power. But is it enough?

Pao goes on to report that there is only one medical kit and they are running out of supplies. Jyn tells them to keep following her priorities for treatment. They were based on a quick calculation in her head of injury severity/prognosis, ease of treatment under their current circumstances and usefulness of the crew member to the survival of the rest. She repeats her assessment now, for each of the ‘in dire need’ patients left that the Pao and Dee show her as they walk around the Recovery Room. She adds their more expert medical assessment to her calculations. She does not feel that she can ask anyone else to make these life and death decisions, it is her responsibility as Leader. She also refrains from mentioning the details of her method, but she decides she’s not ashamed of it. She is their leader not their friend, she reminds herself.

Cassian remains unconscious and in a critical condition. She hears the words from Dee - something about internal slow cranial bleed having been exacerbated by the transport jump – why it is still prototype probably, for field service – but she doesn’t really take it in. She stares down at his familiar features, then shakes her head and turns away. She knows she cannot afford her worry about him to distract her but she is unable to carry out her cold assessment of his prognosis like the rest. She leaves his status at ‘stable possibly critical’.

She is all smiles though as she approaches K’s console, where she finds a now mobile Bodhi. He has had his shattered femur temporarily repaired with the assistance of the two self-appointed Field Surgeons. His leg is immobilized by an external black splint arrangement. He dismisses her concern for him and launches straight into an appreciative summary of the Pao and Befrik’s skills. Apparently Pao started off as an animal surgeon before the Empire wiped her whole colony out, where their beasts were more valuable than the people and much more difficult to treat, according to Bodhi.

 “But how are you feeling?”

 “I’m OK. I – are you going to tell us how we got here? What happened? This isn’t – I’m not dead obviously, but where are we?”

 “Right. Good point. I’ll get K to explain,” Jyn turns to the console but Bodhi touches her hand and she pauses.

 “It’s OK, I don’t need details – this is the Library isn’t it? You used the transporter tech?”

 “Yes.” Her voice is small, she sighs turning back, her other hand moving as if by itself to cover the flashing alarm. Her eyes flick to it and then back to Bodhi’s but it’s enough. He reaches out and slowly uncovers the LED, holding both her hands gently in his.

 “Well, we can all thank you later but now you’re going to tell me what that means,” he gestures with his head to the console.

Jyn wipes her mouth with the back of her hand and blinks rapidly. She tries to swallow down the lump in her throat but it hurts too much. Shakily she answers. “I don’t know. I’m trying to ignore it but it’s getting worse. If K can’t figure out what it means then…” Bodhi’s look of concern is so intense she stutters to a halt. She stares at him, trying not to keep blinking. Again, she tries to swallow and can’t, the dryness in her throat a pain she ignores. At least the pricking in her eyes isn’t going to turn into tears, she thinks.

 “I can help – we all can help,” Bodhi sweeps the room with his gaze, drops her hands and sits down slowly on the chair, massaging the top of the leg which sticks out unbending.   

 “OK but I think it best we keep any concerns we have to ourselves. People are still very vulnerable and I..”  
 “You’re our leader. You just plucked us from the jaws of death. Whatever you decide. But you can tell me, OK?”

Jyn lets out a shuddery breath, almost a laugh. “Yes. OK. Thank you.”

 “Right. So, what do you need?”

She realises as she’s talking to Bodhi that she’d been struggling to hold down her increasing sense of loss and near panic – almost anger - that Cassian does not wake. She feels like a physical weight this leadership role she’s been thrust into. She’s been solving problem after life threatening problem by herself with no let up. The relief at being to share her fears from this alarm is intense, the billowing out of control feeling she’s been suppressing as she struggles to from everyone else. K doesn’t count. She knows she’s been successful because they’ve become so used to as background flashing that no one’s even noticing it any more. In explaining it to Bodhi, her face smooths out, her breathing deepens, slows. Her fingers shake a little as she says “I wish we could think of ways to give K more time.”

 “K will figure it out Jyn.  You’ve connected him to the mainframe.”

 “Yes, but some of the systems may be down and he can’t move around now so…”

 “We have people to help with that. I’m going to go round up anyone with engineering experience – or well, anything that I think will help really. If you agree?”

 “Yes, of course. Whatever you think.”

 “OK but you’re the leader now - in deed as well as word. I’m just the pilot. I could never have done that – what you did – keep a cool head like that, prepare for the worst – you did didn’t you? Beforehand?”

 “Yes,” she whispers, “call me pessimistic.”

 “I’ll call you Leader Jyn I think.”

 “OK.”

 “OK,” and with that he turns and makes his way painfully slowly, limping and holding on to things, to the nearest group.

Listening to Bodhi, confiding in him, accepting his help, she realises, was hard. I’m unused to trusting people, she thinks. Except Cassian. But she feels lighter, able to breathe more easily. Still, she’s glad this centre console is placed away from the others, makes it less obvious she’s trying to keep things from her crew. K’s voice interrupts her thoughts. Maybe he’s found the answer?

He announces in a voice that definitely sounds smug – but he can’t be modulating it already can he? he’s a machine connected to a mainframe! As this thought pops into her head she shakes it as if to discourage a fly, not now Jyn. K has identified the source of the fault causing the alarm: a cracked wall in the outer hull. That’s… Jyn bows her head over the flashing light, hands gripping the top of the console either side of it. Well, is that bad or… She doesn’t know. The light casts garish shadows over her face as it flashes on, off. She sees the countdown: 32 minutes. But she feels nothing. Is it all too late, she thinks, are they going to have time to fix it? Presumably their precious air is escaping into the surrounding rubble. _How_ are they going to fix it? Does this mean a slow death by asphyxiation for them all? Would it not have been better to have died out there, wouldn’t it have been quicker? She pushes herself upright, shaking her head once more, frowns at the LED, then realises she hasn’t been listening to what else K’s been saying. As she tunes in she hears him rattle off options followed by the likelihood of failure of each. Jyn asks him to turn it around and give her likelihood of success. This shuts him up for a few seconds and makes Bodhi smile. She can see him standing in a corner. He’s been talking to a seated group of Rogues but has looked over having heard K. Jyn smiles back and nods her head as he moves to rejoin her, as if to say “see he hasn’t changed”.

K starts to repeat his list with likelihoods of success but she interrupts him. “OK so we need to fix it. But we have no building materials or tools. K can you give us a complete inventory of everything inside the Cube?”

 “Certainly, but it won’t be accurate because I only have the mainframe and the inventory of what’s supposed to be here. I can’t check it against what’s actually here, I can’t move remember? You haven’t fixed me yet.” This last is said with an accusing tone. Yes, he’s definitely got the inflection right, amazing that even under these circumstances K’s uniqueness has survived, she thinks, but somehow it doesn’t have his usual conviction behind it. Hmm, maybe he’s mellowing. Wait a minute, she pulls her thoughts up, didn’t K have people helping him look at stuff already? He hasn’t changed a bit!

 “I could do a 10-minute physical assessment of all our actual on -site assets.” Bodhi has arrived at the console and is holding on to it at one end. Jyn frowns. He’s still hopping from one piece of furniture to another, is he really up to it?

 “Make it 5,” says Jyn “and I’ll round up everyone who’s free to help you.”

 “There’re tablets in the console, use them,” K adds, as a hither too unseen drawer glides open packed with hand held electronic devices. Jyn adds that Bodhi should check with the people who were helping K earlier. Bodhi raises his eyebrows but says nothing.

And so they now have the Inventory Team, headed by Bodhi who in the absence of crutches is using a chair to hold onto and wheel around. It’s very effective as long as he doesn’t need to get through narrow spaces.  Only Bodhi, Jyn and K know what is happening but their rising sense of urgency has alerted the other Rogues that something is up and that they need to act quickly and ask no questions. In 6 minutes they are all back, plugging their tablets into the computer console. K adds this to his analysis of the contents of the Cube including furnishings and what he calls ‘consumables’ which from Jyn takes to not mean actual food.

After another 3 minutes – not that she’s fixating on the countdown at all Jyn tells herself -  he announces in that annoying self-satisfied tone that drive Jyn mad: “ _The metal in the chairs, if melted and used to reinforce the wall in question, will provide sufficient reinforcement as well as tensile strength to withstand the forces being applied to it. This option is the most efficacious. It has a 56% likelihood of success. Plus or minus 23.75 % for variables beyond my capacity to predict._ _”_ Surely it can’t be as simple as that, thinks Jyn, but Bodhi is smiling and patting her on the back. He starts organising the others as she struggles to grasp they have a solution.

She helps round up everyone who is mobile, even those only semi-ambulant because they can at least look and shout out to someone else. But the two she still thinks might have PTSD, Taidu and the really quiet one - whose name she always forgets but who lost it that day in the Med Bay and caused all that damage - she asks to sit and watch Cassian, explaining that the noise may disturb him because he seems to be reacting to auditory stimuli. She wants to give them an option they can take without losing face: the sight and sound of blasters being used in such a small pace could be a trigger for them. They both choose to stay with Cassian and Jyn is glad that at she has learned something useful from her background research.

Coordinated by Bodhi, they wheel all the chairs they can find into the room with the crack in the wall. They stack them in a manner advised by K, who strangely acquiesces to Bodhi’s several adjustments without demur. Jyn wonders at that; does K understand that the consequences of a wrong decision here would result in the exterior wall breaking down, meaning the loss of all the human inhabitants, leaving him alone, immobile and trapped inside the Cube? Is it that he doesn’t want to take this possibly final responsibility? Or is he actually attached to Cassian and behaving like this because he misses him? How did he acquiesce so quickly to keeping this all to just us three and not blurting it out? She’s zoned out, thinking about K, as the heat from the blasters makes her thirst intensify. K’s saying something about needing to seal off the entire room once they’ve finished. She takes this opportunity to slip away, back to the console to consult the inventory and to then disappear into the maze of small storage rooms on the other side of the Cube.

Most of the crew is now huddled around the doorway into the room where three Rogues are still blasting chairs. Although they can’t see much, none of them can bring themselves to leave. They can hear K’s voice coming out of the speaker in the wall inside the room, keeping up a stream of advice, like to melt the chairs from the bottom up so the pile doesn’t collapse but coalesces against the wall. When they are finished, they seal the room off completely using a series of small IEDs Jyn magically produces. She’s made it from things she parasitised from a cleaner droid. It was one of her first skills, child’s play literally at one point in her life. With the door closed, the IEDs make a small popping noise around the doorframe inside, sealing it.

As a group the Rogues move back to the main room, tense, silent. They end up standing, sitting or lying propped against walls, around the main console. K puts the countdown up on several consoles. Jyn notices most of them are not looking at the readout. She glances around, a weird dislocated feeling overcomes her, as if they are all caught in a photo-image, a bizarre echo of the scene on the beach – a sandless, noiseless, calm repeat where time slows, one’s brain grapples with the enormity of the moment and struggles to come up with meaning. Instead of grand thoughts about how they are going out with dignity, a proud band of rebels who achieved their mission, all she can feel is her parched burning throat, a light headedness and pointless worry about whether Cassian is ever going to wake up from his coma. She thinks about holding on to Bodhi, taking his arm maybe, but doesn’t.

Jyn wonders how long Ks voice has been droning on, updating their status second to second: the outer wall is holding, the wall is still holding, all the air has been pumped out of the room, the wall’s integrity is not compromised, their patch is holding. Everyone must have been so focused on that or their thoughts that none of them have seen the countdown go past zero and carry on into the negative. K startles them all by saying that the alarm has finally stopped and that he will now reset the system. She stares at the angry red numerals on the display showing “- 1:47”. A few titters turn into giggles and soon there are smiles all around, together with a few whoops, much back slapping and kisses.

 “I told you it would work,” says K’s voice. If anything, he seems to have expanded his vocal range since being plugged in. He sounds positively peevish. “You should have a bit more faith in me.”

 “Sorry K, we’ve all been through a lot today and we’re all very thirsty and tired and …” Jyn tails off. It’s just too hard. How to explain the psychological state of the crew to a reconfigured, ex-Imperial droid whose body is lying immobile but has regained consciousness through the main system? Where does she even look when she’s trying to speak to him? He doesn’t have a face. She drags one hand through her messy hair, aware that it’s now even messier. She is so past caring she doesn’t even bother re-tying it. She is enveloped in a full body hug. Surprised and not quite sure who it is at first, she turns to confirm it is Bodhi. He releases her almost as suddenly but she gives him a wide smile. Wow, he thinks, that’s the first time I’ve seen her really smile then. Worth it.

He turns, lets out a series of ringing claps and shouts “I would like to publicly acknowledge the great work that K - and the rest of the Team – have managed to pull off to save our sorry skins once again. Three cheers for K!” This is enthusiastically given by the whole crew, including Jyn. Some impromptu dancing ensues. But Jyn gets the impression K is still sulking, he doesn’t respond to her query about the status of the air until Bodhi comes back and repeats the question. Bodhi seems to have become his new best friend so she leaves them to it. Anything to keep K happy and working with them.

She is talking with some of the other crew when she hears K announce that, after Jyn has “ _failed in being able to resurrect_ _”_ his body, he has transferred his entire consciousness into the facility’s computer. Jyn smirks, wondering again if K is missing Cassian and if this is why he’s blaming her. After all, Bodhi is not only an engineer he was also an Imperial pilot so presumably he would be better placed to ‘fix’ K than she. She hears K go on to say his body is not currently needed and that he is adding all of its component parts to their Asset list. Jyn can’t decide if this is hubris, self-sacrifice or some sort of taunt at her that she can’t figure out. She finally concludes that K is simply not sentimental about his hardware. He is running myriad simultaneous tasks (taking the term multi-tasking to a whole new level) as well as constant background checks, for things like the state of the facility, required essential maintenance, as well as trawling for any information in the Library’s files that might help them.

And one of these many Faces of K is emanating from the computer in the makeshift field surgery next door, in the form of a medical expert K who’s mined the databanks for everything needed to guide the Med crew through the abdominal surgery required to stop Chirrut’s internal bleeding. Jyn sees all this as she pauses at the entry to the Med Bay. She is feeling strangely unsettled and in need of action. Probably just the aftermath of the adrenalin rush, she thinks. The need to see Cassian has driven her back here. She is shocked to see that they are going to use blasters on Chirrut. The sight of two of these hateful weapons, so recently being used against them to such devastating effect, in the hands of the Rogues – Taidu and Jav she notes without surprise, with Dee and Arro looking on - causes her to step back. Hand to her mouth she struggles to move forward. She listens as K begins to explain the procedure in what is clearly a repeat. His dispassionate explanations are oddly calming. They are going to use the blasters to cauterise the wounds, modified so that they work internally without breaking the skin, guided by K. Hmm, he’s in his element here, he’s really relishing the role, Jyn thinks. And if it saves Chirrut, then it’s brilliant. But it is to Jyn that the surgical team now turn for advice on how they’re going to anaesthetise Chirrut. At first, she doesn’t understand. Then it is explained.

 “Once Chirrut is unconscious, Baze’s pain is going to come back and he’s probably going to die of the shock,” says Arro, pulling at one lip.

 “Can’t you use a local or spinal block?”

K interrupts “The patient has to reach the deep surgical plane of anaesthesia.”

 “Yes,” agrees the Pao softly, “Chirrut needs a general.”

 “Right then you have to anaesthetise Baze as well.” Pao, Dee and Befrik go off into a huddle to discuss this with K. They opt to give both a general anaesthetic.

 “We’re going to keep Baze connected to Chirrut anyway as blood donor” Befrik confirms. It’s the most she’s ever heard him speak.

K chimes in with “According to my estimate of his blood volume based on blood pressure, clotting time and total haemoglobin,” Jyn thinks she understands most of that, “he still has a few more ccs to give before irreversible anaemia sets in.”

 “Right, well then. You have it under control. Um, keep me posted,” and Jyn takes her leave, remembering that she came in here in the first place to find Cassian. She shakes her head at the avatar K has chosen for himself; a disembodied talking head on the computer monitors that is a caricature of K, recognisable as an Imperial Droid, but morphed onto a face that looks like Cassian. Later, when she asks Bodhi about it he tells her it is K’s hero, some long dead Jedi who was mostly mechanical and who invented a programming language Jyn’s never heard of, a quirk of which allowed Cassian to break K’s Imperial programming. This person has a long name she’s also never heard before and instantly forgets. She still thinks K’s new look resembles a weird K-Cassian offspring, but she doesn’t say anything.

In the Treatment Room she finds another of the new medical staff, Iyu, a petite but ferocious warrior from the jungle planet Abafar, sitting with Cassian. Iyu’s torso and one arm are heavily bandaged and she has multiple puffy purple contusions to her face making her look like some sort of over-ripe tropical fruit. Jyn remembers her blood stopping battle yell that pierced even the strongest heart, a tradition of her militaristic race. Iyu gets up stiffly, to swap places with Jyn, giving her an update as she does so.

 “K has confirmed Cassian’s condition as a sub-dural haematoma. He needs surgery but,” and her voice is almost inaudible, “Pao who is currently operating on Chirrut says she’s not a brain surgeon and, even with K’s guidance, she says she doesn’t feel equipped to do this one.” Jyn knows Befrik, with his massive hands wouldn’t even consider it.

Cassian is stable and his condition is not deteriorating but Jyn asks Iyu to let her know immediately if it worsens. The haematoma may be reducing but he’s still in a coma. They could be obliged to operate despite their surgeon’s reluctance. She can’t make anyone do it but she asks Iyu to pass on her earnest request that both of them to reconsider. Jyn feels their helplessness, their lack of medical supplies and expertise, now more than ever. She knows they are not going to survive if there’s no rescue and wonders what’s happening outside. Did anyone survive, how far did the destruction go and would the Empire eventually come to dig out their Library just to find desiccated corpses? She decides this line of thinking isn’t helpful. She needs rest but she can’t seem to leave Cassian. Finally, she curls up next to him on the narrow bunk.

Later, she awakes, refreshed despite only having had a couple of hours sleep. There seems to be more movement and talking than before, although it is still subdued. Without water no one is moving around much or willing to talk, even if they are able. On joining those in the main room, Jyn gathers that they’ve decided to hold a party to celebrate their latest survival and the success of Chirrut’s surgery. It seems that the bleeding has been stopped at least, although it remains to be seen if he recovers. The party doubles as a wake to commemorate their dead. She moves with effort, feeling as if every muscle in her body is bruised. Is this dehydration, she thinks, a wave of giddiness over taking her. She feels someone grab her arm and steady her.

It’s Bodhi. “Thanks.”

 “Careful. We’ve all noticed we are getting dizzy and you need to move slowly.” He guides her over to the chair at the main console. How ironic if they’ve come this far only to die of simple lack of water. A few of them still had their battle rations but most either lost or drunk theirs, or had it melted like Baze. None of them, except for the three blood loss patients, have had any liquid pass their lips in… Jyn’s brain can’t - or won’t – calculate it.

But she forgets her thirst as she hones in on what K is saying. He’s speaking unusually quietly, just to Jyn and Bodhi, his avatar head bobbing slowly up and down on the screen.  “From the information coming from the stresses in the substructural…” here Jyn zones out. She realises only because he’s saying something else now. “I’ve been recording and analysing the data from the cracked wall.” Jyn frowns, struggling to listen to his words, finding herself mesmerised by the bobbing. She focusses on his lips. It seems to help. “I can only conclude that we must be floating free in space.” The significance of the words escapes Jyn. All she is aware of is amazement that K seems to have finally learned discretion and is telling just to them. 

She turns to Bodhi and tells him this in the same undertones that K has adopted. “No, that isn’t it,” Bodhi whispers back, “I told him specifically to communicate all items relating to any imminent danger to me and you only. K does not understand the concept of discretion, but he does understand chain of command and need to know.” Jyn nods. That makes sense.

Unaware they are discussing him, K says “I have repeated my analysis with all 3,695 possible permutations…” here he seems to pause and is that a frown? He’s staring right at her. Odd. He doesn’t normally take any notice of her. He finishes, clearly changing what he was going to say, “a number of times.”

Jyn is beginning to feel drunk. She has a strange urge to start giggling as if she’s finding what K is saying is incredibly funny. She shakes her head, knowing it isn’t and that it must be something serious. The dehydration is affecting her cognitive abilities. “How many times?” a slurred voice rasps out. The burn in her throat roars. That is her, that is her voice and she hasn’t recognised it.

K is replying “1 billion, 433 million, 54 thousand and twenty.” He goes on to explain that he has only reported it now he is “93.75 % convinced of its accuracy.” Jyn frowns, holding her pounding head. She stares at Bodhi who is looking so shocked she knows she has to snap out of it. She rewinds the conversation and replays it in her head over the top of the pulsating pain. Awareness follows and then a yawning feeling of the floor opening up and slipping sideways. She feels Bodhi gripping her arm again. His fingers are digging in and it hurts, which helps. She struggles to draw in a breath, trying to avoid the desiccating passage of air over her throat. It feels like knives.

 “Wait,” she grips Bodhi’s arm back. “So, what you are saying K,” her voice is barely audible, “is that we are not buried under the rubble on Scarif? We’re what? floating free in space?” She tries to puff out her cheeks but it is as if they are glued to her teeth. She does not have to articulate the thought on her face: how is this _possible_?

It is the last straw for Jyn. She cannot take it in. She has not even considered this, hadn’t worked through the facts to postulate that if the walls could withstand the blast from the Death Star then they could withstand the vacuum of space. Why would she? She struggles to comprehend it, visualise the raw power of such a weapon. How it could have happened? How did they escape the planet’s gravity? Where is the planet’s surface now? Is there even a planetary surface? Were they just blasted off inside a big chunk of geology or did the whole of Scarif disintegrate? How do they even have gravity, inside this Cube? It is far beyond her frazzled brain’s capacity to take in. She has somehow arisen, disentangled herself from Bodhi to find herself backed into the solid coolness of a wall. She sinks gratefully to the solidity of the floor. Bodhi, following, sees her pallor and calls for a medic over a hand-held intercom she didn’t even know they had. After a quick exam the Dee confirms that she is dangerously dehydrated.

As she sits there, legs outstretched, trying to relax her stiff muscles in to the cool floor, glad for the support of the wall at her back, she watches Bodhi. With his quiet manner, his ability to rapidly cut through to the core of a problem then identify the best, most practical solution, she realises that he has become her second in command. A far cry from the brain fried prisoner in Saw Gerrera’s dungeons or the frightened Imperial pilot having hurried and whispered conversations with Galen Erso about defecting, only weeks before back on Eadu.

Unaware that she’s even fallen asleep, after a few hours Jyn wakes again feeling marginally better. She must have had some oral fluids, she thinks, and suspects one of the medics – Dee probably - must have a secret emergency stash. She can swallow much more easily and, while her throat is on fire, she’s no longer dizzy or so very tired. She’s disappointed though to find that the Rogues’ celebrations have been postponed because of general despondency precipitated by a down turn in Chirrut’s condition. It is compounded by there being nothing to eat apart from two stale food bars someone found in the coat of what was presumably one of the Imperial librarians. On the upside they also found a single opened bottle of water. Just about everyone is now sitting or lying on the floor, singly or in groups, mostly silent. They have been waiting for Jyn to wake and as she does, Stordan reverentially presents her with a handful of food bars and half a bottle water as if they are sacred relics. She simply nods at the water then at the crew. She takes the food bars and puts them in a trouser pocket, sealing it carefully. Still without a word, Stordan passes around the water bottle. Each person takes tiny sips, with much lip smacking and obvious enjoyment. She will save the food, it’s too little to make that much difference and everyone is too thirsty to be able to swallow it, she decides. When the bottle comes around to her she is amazed to see it is still a quarter full. She takes a small mouthful and holds it, moving her tongue around in the stale, lukewarm water. It is heaven.

She can’t believe how good it feels. It’s as if every cell in her body is crying out for moisture, as if she is absorbing it straight from her mouth into her parched tissues. Finally, unable to keep the mouthful there anymore she lets it slide down and over her inflamed throat. Nothing has ever tasted this good. She sighs and leans back against the wall, eyes closed. Each time she thinks they’re done for, something happens and that tiny spark ignites again inside her. It’s the same perverse refusal to die that kept her going after she saw her mother gunned down, her father taken away, after Saw abandoned her, after she lost her entire team on that godawful desert planet she is never going to think of again, and most recently, the awful wrench as her father died in her arms. Not to mention all that happened since. She’s survived every time and found a way to go on. It all lead her to this, she sees now. For a moment, she almost wishes that spark would just give up and let her die here, quietly, amongst friends. But then she swallows the final drops, her larynx now lubricated enough for it to almost not hurt. How could just one small sip of water make such a difference, she thinks. And then, if that drop can do such a thing, maybe something else as small will help us get through this whole thing too. Her mind feels clearer than it has since the beach.

She stumbles messily to her feet and drags herself over to K. Bodhi is sitting in the chair, head bowed on his folded arms. He looks defeated but as she nears she hears he is talking with K. Behind her she senses movement, murmuring. The water seems to have done everyone some good; a few Rogues are on their feet looking more alert than they have been in hours. At a break in Bodhi’s muttering, she takes the opportunity to interrupt K. She can only muster a sibilant whisper but Bodhi hears all that she is saying, looking at her with his wide, dark eyes. Suddenly K’s voice booms around the room.

 “Jyn Erso, leader of Rogue One, appoints as her second in command the pilot and engineer, Bodhi Rook.” He goes on to name two other Rogues, Jav and Stordan, as their 3ICs. These are people Jyn feels have shown themselves to hold the respect of the crew. K is muttering loudly enough for all to hear that, in his opinion, the leadership team has only a 54% chance of success. This is greeted with general chuckling, as well as applause for the two appointed 3ICs, who walk over, grinning sheepishly. Bodhi shakes their hands and then turns to Jyn with brows raised, also grinning. This is almost as good as a party, Jyn thinks. She asks K to brief her leadership team on their current situation.

 But before he gets too far she says “Sorry K, for interrupting, I just need to stress the importance of keeping these things from the rest of the crew. I will explain enough for eople to feel safe and to understand what we need to do, but I do not want to cause panic or overwhelm anyone,” and here she nods towards the Med Bay. “Some people have enough to deal with already.”

 “The fighters among us’ll unnerstan, as will the _arackh-no-heraldi-zcha_ , Leader Jyn,” Jav spits out, using some unintelligible word that somehow conveys scorn as well as reluctant admiration for those Rogues who lived as spies, assassins and other unsavory tools of the Rebellion. None of them are used to being told anything by their leaders. If it wasn’t that I trust Jav, thinks Jyn, her scars would be intimidating as hell. She knew they were a result of the ritual all warriors endure on Jav’s world: trial by Saeger beast. The repeated tri-pattern are from wounds inflicted by the beast’s deadly tail. It’s from staunching such wounds that Jav learnt her first aid skills. Jyn tries not to stare at them though she’s seen them dozens of times. They’re just so… Jyn doesn’t have a word for them and realises she’s prevaricating instead of outlining their problems as K has prioritised them;

  1. Scrub CO2 from the air
  2. Find a source of H20 – they still urgently need to treat some of the injured because they ran out of iv fluids hours ago Jav reports, also everyone is starting to show general signs of dehydration, despite the drink that seems to have revitalised most of them
  3. Fix their communications so they can talk to the outside world – the Cube, K explains, has no external dish, so their communications cannot get through the walls.



K goes into further detail: they will need a bigger and constant source of water and a method of storage for human waste including medical (dressings etc.) because burning them would use too much oxygen. “This also includes the bodies,” he says with apparent relish. “They will start giving off noxious gases. Although the cold in the Morgue is delaying that, I estimate that…”

K gives them his estimate of the number of days until the deterioration of each will cause what he calls “irreversible Cubal breakdown”. Jyn assumes that he means it will no longer support human life, asks for clarification from K and has that confirmed. There is a pause as she waits for him to explain that he and the Library’s files will all be fine as they don’t need air or water, but uncharacteristically he doesn’t. He does give for each problem a prediction of the likelihood of it remining unsolved thus resulting in their deaths.

She knows that he is constantly monitoring the walls, the power source, the heating and when she asks him for an update on any other problems, he says “I currently do not understand several things.”

 “What things?”

 “I do not understand why we have gravity.” He goes on to describe the design and construction of the blue prints that he has now studied in detail. His admiration for the Imperial architects is obvious. Jyn can relate, look at her father, she thinks.

Bodhi and the 3ICs assign tasks to check the list of Assets against K’s list. On it K has found something that has him excited but he won’t say what it is until confirmed by the analysis he is running. He instructs samples to be taken of the walls in various rooms and in the data banks. These are then given a simple test by Jav in the Med Bay, using a mild acid. Both K and Bodhi seem elated by the results and go into a huddle, calling now and then for things to be physically checked by the 3ICs and their team, the former members of the Assets Team.

It transpires that, with Bodhi, K has devised a system to electrically break down the insulation material lining the data banks. K explains to Jyn, quietly but in his best school room voice, “Now we are not buried below the ground in a relatively hot planet, but floating in outer space, where it’s freezing, insulating the data banks to keep them cool is superfluous.” At Jyn’s question he goes on to explain, using annoyingly small words, “The Cube will remain livable inside because we are not stripping the outer walls.”

He goes on to explain that their main problem is collecting the insulation material from the walls and floor of the data banks area because there is no human access. The implication is there unspoken that had Jyn been able to fix his body, he would have been able to do it. Or perhaps I’m just being paranoid, she tells herself. The breach in the viewing window Jyn and Cassian broke to access the files sealed itself automatically with a solid security shutter at some point. This means they only have video feed for visual access and have to use the same paddles Jyn and Cassian used to get the data cassette from the Library with the Death Star plans. Being back here, watching the monitor as the insulation material is painfully scraped up and dragged in little piles to a small port in the floor of one wall, Jyn is reminded of both Cassian and her father. Her eyes are not seeing the growing mound of greyish lumps as they are sealed then pressurised. Instead she is remembering the feel of rain hammering on her back as she struggles to hold her father’s limp torso. She does not hear the small hiss as the resultant brick appears at the port’s small opening at floor level. Instead are her father’s last whispered words, his breath a fleeting warmth on her cheek: “I love you Jyn. I’m sorry.”

She shakes her head and frowns. She realises she’s missed the whole thing as a Rogue is carrying what looks like a grey brick, about the size of a skutter droid, out of the room. From the way she’s moving it must be heavy, denser than it looks. This better work, she thinks, then - surely it can’t be this simple? She follows the brick carrier down corridors to a room being specially modified by the new Engineering Team, led by Bodhi. The room looks large even though its cluttered with equipment and people. It has a make shift feel and then Jyn realises they’ve removed the ceiling tiles to expose the ducting, pipes and overhead lighting. She tries to make sense of it all. The Team members have spread around them an eclectic mix of tubing, what looks like parts of Baze’s huge gun, bits of K from the look of the matt black metal, and various other domestic and electronic arcana. How it is all going to be put together she has no clue. Making IEDs is the limit of her chemistry know how. It is a process that K has explained to all the Rogues, twice, and she still has no clue about. She makes out the cylinder K had spoken of, watches as it is connected to the water pipes that run unnoticed in the exposed ceiling crawl space. She knows now that these pipes lead to hidden tanks that are currently empty but were once connected to the outside. Within the cylinder, somehow, with the aid of an electric current – and here Jyn’s eyes run back over the cylinder noticing this time all the electrical wiring dangling above it from the ceiling – the compounds that make up the insulation material are broken down and, incredibly, water is produced. Jyn had been disappointed to learn how the tiny volumes of water being generated per block are and deems it wise for K to clearly explain the whole process to everyone, ensuring there are no false expectations. They weren’t going to be awash but, with rationing, K has calculated it should keep them all “sufficiently hydrated” as he puts it. She’s notices he doesn’t give his usual time frames for how long it’s going to last them, with percentages of likely failures and she decides not to ask. No point in knowing, it isn’t going to get them rescued any quicker.

Apart from producing water, the process leaves a bulky residue that they start to simply stack in the corridors. The whole thing is slow work, generating a mere few litres a day but the two Teams start to work round the clock to build up a reserve. On a break, Qi Ro-lu, one of the Engineering Team enthusiastically takes Jyn on a tour. She shows Jyn the position of the hidden tanks, behind a blank, sterile wall. Her energy is infectious as she bounces up and down. Her energy amazes Jyn until she remembers Qi Ro-lu is Seckarian. Like Tatooine, it’s a desert planet and all the life forms there are superbly adapted to low surface water. Jyn is so used to thinking of everyone in terms of Rogues, her crew, or their injury/ fitness status, she sees as if for the first time, the tiny size of Qi Ro-lu, her tough leathery skin and hair that is actually more like thick strands of orange rope. At least one of them is completely functional. There is hope yet.

 “We’re all going to be able to drink our fill soon,” she gushes.

She hasn’t wanted to ask what K’s answer is to the problem that being hydrated again will soon be causing them. Presumably there are toilets somewhere here. But Qi Ro-lu is explaining further and Jyn turns to give her an encouraging grin. “So, go on then, tell me why there are water tanks inside the walls.”

 “They were installed for use in the event of a fire inside the Cube, Leader Jyn,” she says, “but they were sealed off as part of the Cube’s shut down to isolation mode.” Jyn suspects they may have been filled with water that drained out as the surrounding planet was ripped away from them, but she doesn’t say this. Except for her, K and Bodhi, no one knows they are free falling in space, adrift, sealed up, deaf as well as blind.

Qi Ro-lu, in her high pitched birdlike voice, is waxing lyrical, a true K acolyte thinks Jyn, as they make their way back to the main room. His bobbing head is going to swell with all this adoration. “K is brilliant! He’s also solved the CO2 scrubbing problem with this system,” she tells Jyn, waving her wiry arms around as if to demonstrate the rising gaseous pollution from all their breathing out in this sealed system. “He figured it out after Bodhi said the bricks remind him of the soda limestone blocks on his home world that they use as cheap building material.”

Ah that’s interesting, thinks Jyn, nodding her thanks to her tour guide and returning to the console and ‘her’ chair. “Well done K on solving two of our worst problems at once,” she says. But she doesn’t get the response she’s expecting. K ceases to bob in fact and, if anything, his blank face is – Jyn is not sure. She wonders how it is able to portray emotions in a way his mechanoid face never had. Is that embarrassment? He doesn’t seem to be meeting her eyes.

Later Jyn discovers K confessed his shame to Bodhi because he had multiple analyses running to find the answer to the CO2 problem as well as the water problem but had neglected to either link the two searches or update their inventory to reflect the new substance appearing as a waste product from the water generation. He had come up with several complex options but Bodhi suggested just leaving the bricks lying around to passively absorb the CO2. As it is heavier than air the gas will accumulate low to the ground. Happy with this, K calculates the optimal number, position and length of time for them to be left out. More than the simplicity of the arrangement, Jyn is stunned that K is now showing shame.

 “Whatever next?” she chuckles to Bodhi. “Pity we couldn’t have hooked him up to a mainframe sooner, he used to be insufferable.”

The Insulation Collection Team (or Ickies as Stordan keeps calling them) - formed of everyone not busy already - joins with the Engineering and Assets Team to becomes the Water/ Co2 Team or WACO, explains Stordan. For their toughest fighter, renowned for his stamina and ruthlessness, he seems to relish thinking of these Team names, Jyn smiles to herself. She delights in the way her Rogues are jumping to the tasks at hand, forming new teams and coming up with mascots and code names. The mascot for the Engineering Team is a wire figure that looks uncannily like K but is called E. The mascot for the WACOs is a round blob shape carved from one of the recycled bricks that the Team names Bob. In a quiet moment when Jyn is having a sip of water with some of the WACOs during their down time, she asks why Bob and one of them says it’s because the shape reminds them of their mother, Bob meaning mother in their language. Jyn approves.

She remembers her own mother and the profound influence she had on Jyn. How she’d been a much more gifted engineer than Galen but had categorically refused to work for the Empire. How she’d secretly worked for the resistance all those years with Saw, making sure Jyn was also trained without her father ever having known. Losing Galen when she’d only just found him again hurt a lot, but Jyn had been far closer to her mother and her loss she felt every day, all the time, like losing a limb. She never understood her father, only just recently coming to understand his sacrifice. But she still couldn’t agree with what he’d done. She may understand his motivation and accept that for him, the option he chose, but she knew she’d never have made a decision like that. She sighed, she was still so tired, after all the excitement of their water and air scrubbing dilemma being solved. Seeing her fall asleep again next to Cassian, the Med staff quietly leave, dimming the lights, Iyu putting a rolled-up lab coat for a pillow under Jyn’s head and spreading a jacket over her.

 

**Chapter Three: Reality Sets In**

Jyn feels ill-equipped to deal with the human – human issues that seem to be arising now they have solved the air and water problems. She knows it’s being exacerbated by their increasing hunger but she doesn’t understand why yesterday they were all pulling together and only a few days ago celebrating their first drink of water, and now there are petty fights are breaking out and there’s endless bickering. Remembering he is apparently now doing emotions like shame, Jyn asks K for information on the psychology of survival post trauma.

She finds a paper in the list of files K presents that seems to be more intelligible than most of them. It describes the basic needs of all mammals, entitled ‘The Five Freedoms’, being freedom;

  1. from hunger and thirst
  2. from discomfort – the need for a shelter and a comfortable resting area with no extremes of temperature
  3. from pain, injury or disease
  4. to express normal behaviour
  5. from fear and distress.



She then finds one specifically about people that doesn’t have indecipherable jargon words every five seconds, talking about ‘the hierarchy of needs’. She recognises that the first two layers of this needs pyramid are basically the same as the first two freedoms. Jyn is not sure she’s learned anything useful yet – it just seems to be new words for things she already knew. She sits back to think. These needs or freedoms - or whatever you want to call them - sound to Jyn a lot like some of the things her mother taught her and she later built on in her years with Saw. She hadn’t realised she was practicing psychology as she managed egos, encountered megalomaniacs and learned to steer clear of psychopaths as she navigated the treacherous waters of the Galaxy’s underbelly. Recalling a particularly nasty individual she dealt with, the sound of a particularly heated argument penetrates and she looks around, frowning. Two Rogues equally matched in size – Taidu and Meks who has only recently become mobile, his multiple fractures must still be painful – are up in each other’s faces, fingers jabbing chests. It’s going to be pushing next, then fists, she thinks.

Instead of approaching the two in question she approaches a nearer group, hailing them in a loud jovial voice, praising them all for how everyone worked together to solve their problems. She doesn’t look directly at Taidu or Meks but sees them stop, the noise cut off, as if they are both listening. Meks shuffles off first. Jyn catches a muffled ‘sorry mate’.  As she claps Qi Ro-lu, the smallest Rogue but tough as Aldarian steel, on the back, she sees Taidu shaking his head and looking sheepish.

Instead of going back to her reading, she carries on, going around giving praise to anyone she can find, trying to make it specific and unique to each person. Her mother had always done that and it was something she’d noticed – how general praise is pretty meaningless. It had become something she’d always tried to do as well. At first, she has the idea in mind to give them all a feeling of purpose, of hope. But she quickly becomes involved in hearing about people’s problems, trying to talk through solutions or simply just listening when it’s obvious they want to vent. She finds this sort of activity far more draining but also knows she never wants to go back to the previous few days, racing to solve one crisis before the next became critical. Still, she misses the action, tries to tell herself she is not getting claustrophobic locked in a Cube day after day with these people, hurtling through space. She isn’t even going to start down the ‘what if we hit something’ track.

She wonders if some of the crew have PTSD. She goes back to her chair and reads up on that. She decides they need expert help and she could do more harm than good, so she trusts to these people’s resilience and hopes that they can find the proper treatment they need later. When they are rescued, as they must be. She’s beginning to think she should have studied human psychology. It’s all so interesting, but heavy at the same time. She concludes there is general post battle shock and grief at their losses with only a couple of possible PTSD cases. And who knows what has happened to these people in the past. She knows there is a lack of understanding amongst the Rogues of the problems they face here, some of this ignorance she has created herself deliberately. But she knows that most will fall back into default soldier mode and trust their leaders, as long as they have hope and jobs to do. On the other hand, she’s aware these are people of action. She worries that a prolonged incarceration inside the Cube may not be a good scenario.

She finds a really old reference and starts reading it, taking it with her on one of the hand-held tablets, so she can sit next to Cassian. It’s the journal of a captain of a ship from hundreds of years ago, as she struggles with boredom and a disenfranchised crew, their ship disabled, floating for three years in space before they are rescued. She is at the same time fascinated, wanting to learn more about how the captain and officers coped, but also reluctant to come to the end and find out how they survived. If they survived, because although the journal had obviously been found maybe none of the crew had. She starts to read it out loud to Cassian, Iyu having told her he may be able to hear her.

As a result of all her reading and in consultation with Bodhi, Jav and Stordan, Jyn recognises they need a general debrief. Part of it she decides, is to tell people the truth about how they are free floating in space. She toys with the idea of letting K do this, but talks to her leadership and they convince her that would be disastrous. Stordan suggests they simply stick to the tried and true method for soldiers, have it come from the top, from Jyn, baldly with no frills. They can follow it with more detail from Bodhi, stuff about the strength of the hull etc. to normalise the situation and he can present the likely positive scenarios. Then the two 3ICs will sit down with folk later, fleshing out what it all means for them – the need for people not to panic, to pull together, be prepared to muck in like they were – mostly – all doing to any job required to get them through this. They will also hear people’s concerns and bring the valid ones back to Bodhi and Jyn.

 “Everyone will have questions and some will be stupid like from Taidu and Arro probably,” they laugh at this.

 “But some will be sensible and everyone will want to know the answers,” notes Jav.

 “Yes,” adds Stordan, “and to stop the bitching, and ridiculous conspiracy theories us soldiers all love, we need to hold the follow ups soon after.”

 “Agreed,” says Jyn, Bodhi is nodding.

 “You’ll never stop the bitchin,” Jav points out with a sad shake of the head. Stordan chuckles, nodding his. Jyn looks at the two of them, both big, muscular fighters, good with people in different ways, Stordan more by the book but approachable while Jav seemed like everyone’s gruff uncle, aloof, taciturn with exacting standards but ready with praise when earnt. She feels the rightness of their decision to add these two people to their team. They are in touch with the crew in a way she and Bodhi could never be, both caring but fair, firm but not indulgent. It was a good choice.

Jyn is amazed at how well the Rogues take the news of their perilous situation in their stride. There are a few really good questions and several of the later sessions are heated. Jyn is exhausted after each one. But there is no panic, not even a hint of mutiny or any of the other worst-case scenarios she’s been keeping at bay, rising as they have night after night like endless waves set to swamp her. At one of the sessions someone suggests they hold a group funeral, with volunteers speaking for each of their dead crew members. This is met with general agreement.

It turns out that Stordan has been hoarding some alcohol found in an engraved flask in the pocket of one of the dead. Meks, who’d been close to the deceased, says it was from her wife on their 10th anniversary, before the Empire invaded their planet. They use it for a toast, passing the flask solemnly between them, just a wetting of lips but it is enough. Was it only a few days ago, Jyn thinks, that we were doing this with that miraculous bottle of water? She remembers how glorious it tasted. How fitting to be re-enacting that now. The flask comes back around to her again with a dribble left. She steps forward and with a flick of her hand sprinkles it over the bodies. Then three volunteers move to carefully slide them into position, a pattern devised by K so as to maximise their cooling, minimise decomposition. When they are finished and step back, everyone can see that the bodies form a circle, feet towards the centre, torsos fanning out, forming the arms of a radiating sun. There is a collective sigh and the one minute’s silence does not seem near long enough. Then Rogues file out with barely a murmur. The room is sealed as K extracts the air from it, having explained that the vacuum will mean it will stay colder and any leaks will be of air moving into the room rather than out. What he doesn’t say and Jyn thinks as she walks away is that this way no noxious fumes from the bodies will move into the rest of the Cube. It is so quiet she can hear hissing as the air is pumped out back into the rest of the Cube. Some people cluster in a loose ring around the now sealed funeral room. Each struggles with their own thoughts, some moved by the words spoken and new knowledge about a crew mate they thought they knew. Others are propelled back to other funerals, other losses. There is quiet weeping. But at least, thinks Jyn, it is a symbol. We’ve sealed up our dead, all the rest of us are going to survive. There will be no more deaths.

When everyone is back in the main room, Bodhi breaks the silence. He suggests they adopt the radiating sun as the Rogue emblem. There is a general nodding of heads as tears continue to fall, hugs are shared. They are crying for their crew mates and for everyone they have ever lost, their families, their former happy lives. And for themselves, lost with no way of knowing if they’re ever going to be found. It is fitting that we shed some of our hard-won water, Jyn thinks, in honour of our grief, our loss, so many losses. Somehow, in this moment, the radiating sun gives them a feeling of hope, hope that they may see a real sun once more. Like the little silver oblongs had been, it’s a good emblem.

Although they have only found a few supplies in staff lockers, the Assets team (or A-team as Stordan keeps calling them) think they have found a food generator in one of the furthest store rooms. It’s old and doesn’t look to have been used in years, possibly left behind after the construction and fit out of the Library. K is on to it and, with Bodhi’s tinkering, they soon have a source of food, for a limited time anyway. The generator is connected to food banks still containing remnants of protein, carbs, fats that they have found, at Ks prompting, hidden in the walls of the storage room. K gives them predictions of how soon it will be depleted. He tells them he has tailored the menu for each person, maximising their nutritional balance and so they don’t end up with ‘unusable stuff’. They all cram into the storage room for the first food they will have eaten in a week. Jyn lets one of the A-team do the honours. A button is pressed, there is some sucking sounds and a ping. A dull green tube of something dribbles out into the cup. They all want to see so it is passed around then returned. The cup has a coil at the bottom like some sort of spaceworm, odourless and a foul baby poo colour. The Asset team member lifts it to her lips and drinks, then grimaces. Their latest triumph has turned to slop, literally. The Rogues file out in disappointment but no one complains. Nobody talks about what is going to happen when the slop runs out. Someone mentions the worst meal he ever had and they are off, comparing prandial disasters. Jyn shakes her head as she leaves the room, hears K in the background asking what’s wrong and why aren’t they having the party. She can almost see the head bobbing.

In another room, they find a box of actual food stores, on a low shelf shoved right up the back in one corner. It must have taken years for all the archive to be assembled and catalogued once the place had been built, Jyn surmises. Most of what they find is still edible; tinned fruit, dehydrated meals, packets of dry biscuits. Compared to the Baby Poo, its haute cuisine. Jyn doles out a couple of items every few days in informal ceremonies recognising people’s efforts, a Team’s achievements or just generally anything, like the funniest joke that day. She remembers the food bars she’s stashed under Cassian’s blankets and adds them as well. K doesn’t understand why the crew needs this, or that food goes beyond basic nutrition and has a psychological component; he decides to study this in his “spare time”. Jyn starts to wonder how many more personality quirks are going to manifest now he’s gone mainframe.

Some people are still in critical or poor condition and another person dies. Cassian remains stable but in a coma. Sometimes Jyn feels as if none of it happened, that she never knew him, argued with him, fought alongside him, clung to him, as if it was all a dream. She calculates she has been stuck here in this Cube 9.5 times longer than the actual time she spent with him. I’m becoming like K, obsessed with minutia and calculating the odds all the time: there is a 43% chance Cassian will never wake up. No – there is a 57% chance that he is going to wake up. He is. He must. But in the meantime, is she going to end up going crazy – is everyone, each in their own way?

Jyn continues to struggle to deal with ‘people problems’; someone pilfering; someone going berserk and damaging precious medical equipment in a PTSD attack; sub groups forming that won’t work with each other, blaming starting. She knows that like her, the Rogues are troops that are used to action. But also, she reasons, they are acquainted with sitting around waiting to go into action. Now that their immediate life-threatening problems are over and their basic needs met, it is their mental health that requires the most work to maintain. She realises they need to try harder on their stand down techniques.

Several solutions come from a now talking Chirrut who – bizarrely Jyn thinks – starts people on card games. He’s been very quiet since his surgery which, although it stopped him from bleeding out, left him paralysed from the neck down. Jyn knows that even before this, and now more than ever, he is a person who seems to sit to the side, appearing not to engage. But actually, despite his blindness and his inability to move anything except his head, he somehow sees more clearly than any of them. She is relieved to find him again taking up his mantle of irreverent wise man. She feels like he is the voice of calm and reason, the centre of their little band. She gives him the job of Morale Officer. If Chirrut can make it and retain his good humour, the Rogues seem to decide, then so can they. Over the next few days, the gambling on card games becomes intense.

This new role for Chirrut Imwe gives him a new lease on life. He keeps them all going with his apparently simple yet profound philosophy. Jyn wakes one morning to find half the crew practising meditation and getting in touch with the Force through exercises in the main room. Now that his burns are healed to the point where they no longer ooze and require dressing, she gives Baze the job of Security – basically mediating disputes between crew members and investigating their many complaints. He does this surprisingly effectively because of course he has Chirrut’s help, who sees all. Baze’s scarring tissue has contracted the skin so much his left arm is barely mobile but he compensates well. But since waking he’s become a recluse, apparently obsessed with nursing Chirrut, staying by his side every moment, refusing to leave their room. She also notices when she does try to engage with him, he turns away from her, refusing to meet her eye. She remembers Saw’s periods of seclusion each time he suffered another terrible injury and had more of his body replaced by cyborg parts. Even big brave people lose their confidence. She guesses that this is what is going on with Baze – he’s sensitive about his monstrous appearance. Taking him by the arm one morning she insists on dragging him away from Chirrut and into the main room. Even though there’s no way she could physically force him to, he acquiesces. Perhaps he’s been waiting for this opportunity, she thinks. Standing with her hand still on his arm at the doorway, she shouts out for everyone’s attention then announces Baze’s new role. She isn’t sure but she suspects this was the first time most people have seen Baze’s burns properly and she is prepared for shocked looks, turning away. What she isn’t prepared for – and neither is Baze from his stillness she feels through his arm – is how people come straight over to congratulate the giant man on his recovery and his promotion. They joke around, telling him how his looks haven’t improved and that it’s good Chirrut is blind. They are used to dreadful injuries, she concludes, and are truly glad he is alive. A couple of the younger ones hang back but even they pluck up courage to come up, shyly greet Baze. Jyn stares fiercely at the floor throughout, in case she sees in his face what she is struggling to keep down, and as a result loses it in front of them all. She hears his low rumbled replies and what sounds like rapid swallowing. Several times he has to clear his throat. She leaves him to his crew mates.

Later that night Jyn, unable to sleep, wanders the rooms. Something flashes down the corridor and she frowns. There shouldn’t be a light there. She pads on bare feet to investigate. She stops when she sees the object but can’t compute what it is. It looks familiar but for a moment she doesn’t recognise it. As she nears, puts out her hand to touch it, she realises it’s a stylus, the shiny metal glinting off the light inside the room where it hovers. It appears to be floating in space and she plucks it out of the air frowning, holding it close to examine it. It’s seems to be just an ordinary writing tool. She walks into the room, still looking closely at the stylus. It’s the room Chirrut has commandeered for his meditation after Jyn complained there were too many bodies sleeping in the main area. She sees him lying in his accustomed bed with the huge dark form of Baze behind him, against the wall. The subdued light falls on Chirrut’s face. He’s awake looking at her. Even though he is blind he is somehow seeing. She constantly forgets his blindness. His look is… embarrassed? This makes her laugh. She’s noticed that since he’s become paralysed his face has grown much more expressive. She wonders if he knows and decides he probably does.

She holds out to him the slim black cylinder, with a questioning look. She holds it up. Receiving a nod from Chirrut she carefully lets it go. It remains hanging in front of her - with _nothing_ holding it up. She moves to the wall and slowly sinks down to the floor, not taking her eyes of it as it floats there exactly as a stylus shouldn’t.  She swallows. It’s incredible. I’ve heard about this, she thinks, in tales mamma told me when she tucked me in at night. Mythical bedtime stories about Jedi Knights of old, their power and wisdom, their abilities to use the Force to affect the world around them. But they were just tales, she never believed them, how could they be real? She hadn’t believed since she’d been that little girl, back before her world had been ripped apart. She lets out an expletive under her breath. It is true - Chirrut can use the Force to move and hold objects, even projecting through a wall as she discovers, watching him fly the stylus out of the door to disappear then come zooming back in again. She loves the huge grin on his face, like a small boy. She grins back at him. From his simple delight she concludes that it is new to him as well. As a blind person, it makes sense that he compensated for his lack of vision by developing his other senses. Perhaps now that his body is cut off from him, she reasons, he’s been able to develop latent telekinetic skills. Then, for the first time in weeks, she is filled with what she shakily acknowledges as excitement: can he move things in a vacuum? on the other side of a wall as thick as their outer hull?

Next morning after a sleep filled with dreams of walking amongst high mountain lakes, a place she’s never been but that feels familiar, she takes Chirrut away from his morale duties to work with him and K in secret. Baze of course also knows Chirrut’s abilities and that something is up, but doesn’t interrupt as he performs the tasks he sees as his job and only his job. He wheels Chirrut around in one of the few remaining chairs that he’s modified, attends to his other needs, feeds and cleans him, making sure Chirrut is ready early each day. He achieves this with the maximum of scowls but the minimum of words, while still fulfilling his official role as head of Security.

The treats have now become hand-made items or privileges because the food ran out a weeks ago. Chirrut has several followers keep up his meditation classes and poker games, giving them the occasional suggestion and even the odd appearance. These new Morale Officers are put in charge of thinking up new rewards and incentives. The Water and Co2 Team receive a lot of treats in the first few weeks of their success. Everyone is amazed how much better and energised they feel now they are hydrated. Even though they know they are also drinking the water salvaged from their own urine, because although no one talks about it, this is one of the jobs the WACOs have to roster to the whole crew to ensure everyone takes a turn. The ‘job that shall not be named’, as Chirrut calls it, consists of collecting the pee (which has been separated from the ‘solid matter’), taking it to the Water room and pouring it into the Vats. Surprisingly the solid matter that is the by product from the distillation of the urine doesn’t smell that bad. K finds uses for it. The other ‘solid matter’ is stored with the human remains and medical waste, in a vacuum room which Bodhi’s engineering team has set up with an air lock arrangement in its wall similar to the data banks. This allows them to add small things into the sealed space.

Things seem to be going OK, much better than a few weeks ago, but Jyn has a tension building up inside her. She knows that it could be anything, maybe just a small thing, which will set off the powder keg that it this group. Something is going to happen, she can feel it. She worries that it is something she should have foreseen and splits her time between sitting with the unconscious Cassian talking to him softly about anything that comes into her head, and pouring through the archives and data gathered by K about their situation, working through possible scenarios. Progress with Chirrut is so frustratingly slow she could almost scream. She knows she can’t lose it but being locked in these few rooms with the same people day after day is wearing her down.

 

**Chapter Four: Is This the End?**

After two weeks of slow improvement, Chirrut can now move heavy objects located several rooms away. Jyn tries to remain calm but she can’t seem to stop excitement bubbling up. Maybe her crazy idea is going to work. She can’t seem to stick at anything and is just annoying Chirrut by trying to help. The only thing that seems to calm her down is when she’s with Cassian. She’s taken to reading to him the journal of that long-ago captain adrift with her crew.

The Engineering team, under Bodhi and K’s direction, are busy ripping things apart and trying to fit them together to make a transmitter dish. This is a frustrating game of making stuff and taking it apart over and over again in myriad ways. The team are ruthless in the things they take - and often destroy - in the search for the parts they need. They are given the nickname of The Magpies after some animal that is known for collecting odd things, native to a far off, long lost planet. At first, people are annoyed but when they realise it might mean they can send a signal to the outside, they throw themselves into it, sometimes offering up the most bizarre stuff. The Morale Officer of the day puts the unwanted returned equipment – often in bits - on the meditation table. One of them points out that the table is not in any way an altar or any other thing that resembles even slightly any sort of religion. There are too many of the Rogues who have faced persecution either because of their own or other people’s religious beliefs. The ‘table’ is, in fact, a battered piece of sheeting resting on some air filter bricks. The meditations for the next while focus on thanking the Magpie Team for their work, asking that they become successful and focusing on how these apparently broken things can now be put to new uses. Many of them turn up in the works of art that start to appear about the place and are given as rewards in the now weekly Thanksgiving Ceremony. The shape of a radiating sun seems to be a common theme, Jyn notices. Small versions of the symbol appear embroidered or stuck on people’s jackets or shirts, made out of a motley selection of materials.

The Magpie team finally come up with the final version of the equipment they hope will send their signal out across the void. Bodhi remains closeted with it, K and Chirrut for days, dragging into weeks. They are working on how to assemble the equipment outside the wall. They forget to eat and Baze takes on looking after Bodhi as well as Chirrut.  Jyn is plagued by her inability to help and the tedium and minutia of having to run the Cube. She is irritated by the petty nature of her crew’s complaints and knows that they are missing the spiritual guidance of Chirrut. Apart from Bodhi, Chirrut and Baze, the only person she can stand to be with is Cassian, and he’s still in a coma. She laughs as she accepts she’s annoyed with him for it, as if he’s staying asleep just to make her life more miserable. People are learning to avoid her as she finds it increasingly difficult to stop scowling and shouting at them.

Finally, mercifully, it is done and the Comms team is ready to start the assembly process. The dish the Magpie team has constructed looks like something from a school project. It wobbles. Surely it’s not going to stand up to the rigours of space, Jyn thinks. But she has to concede that Bodhi must know what he’s doing, even if she doesn’t trust K. There is no surety of their success, but the scariest part is that they are going to be breaching the outer wall. For this they have to totally rely on K and Chirrut. Jyn is beset by misgivings. She knows she trusts Chirrut and she should trust K by now but questions plague her mind and won’t be ignored.

 “Have I lost the capacity to shove these doubts away?” she asks Cassian late into the night before the big day. “What if this doesn’t work? Then I’m going to have to deal with the whole crew’s disappointment. And blame probably. And I can’t do it Cassian. I can’t deal with all these people problems!” She shifts in her seat, trying to bring her voice back down to a whisper. “Have I set Chirrut up for failure? If this doesn’t work, people are going to lose trust in him as well and then where will we be? You have no idea how much his mediation sessions have helped. And the poker! Who’d have thought it! You have no idea how much they’re into it, we don’t even have anything to buy! But I don’t know how we’ll survive this if it doesn’t work. And Baze is worried that it’s taking its toll on Chirrut. Oh, Cassian I just don’t know. And really, I don’t blame you for not waking up.” And here she leans back, eyes closed. “I’m just so tired.”

Baze is talking quietly to Chirrut as they lie together in their bunk that same night. The hull has been breached into the sealed vacuum room, they’re all ready to go tomorrow. But Chirrut whispers in a voice Baze can barely hear “I don’t know how I’m going to have the energy to move the wiring and the dish outside and then connect it.” He sounds totally exhausted as his head lolls on Baze’s massive arm.

  “Is there a way the crew could… would a group meditation help?” asks Baze, pulling Chirrut closer. He’s never heard him sound so vulnerable before, not even while he was recovering from his surgery. In the light from the corridor, he can read the look that steals across Chirrut’s face. It is the same one that would appear whenever Baze offered up a simple and - to him - very obvious solution to something Chirrut was over thinking. Even though he’s paralysed from the chest up, able to breathe on his own and turn his head but not move his arms, Baze doesn’t think it odd that he can read Chirrut as easily now as he’s always done. He isn’t aware that it is at all remarkable he’s able to do it just from Chirrut’s head movements and facial expressions. The possibility that Chirrut is using the Force to speak to him mind to mind never enters his head. Chirrut, of course, has thought about it a lot, realising that this is one of their many differences. “This huge bear of a man knows, understands and loves me so well it is the same as when I was dodging Storm trooper blasters and he was helping. We are one. To Baze, I have not changed.”

With tears in his eyes, he moves so he can kiss Baze on the ear. This turns into a proper kiss when Baze turns his head in amazement. They haven’t been close like this since Chirrut’s injury. Baze thought they never would be again, thought that Chirrut had given up his earthly self in some sort of spiritual coping mechanism. Chirrut whispers that he thinks, if they the crew are all touching each other and him, as well as meditating, it will channel the Force enough. Baze just holds him, lips in Chirrut’s warm hair, unable to speak. Every day he spends with Chirrut is a blessing, if things don’t work tomorrow, he will be here to hold Chirrut and give him his strength. He buries the fluttering of fear he feels deep down inside. He will be strong. For Chirrut.

Refreshed from a short but deep sleep, Jyn wakes determined to do something instead of feeling useless. She goes to the prep room where Chirrut, K and Bodhi are setting up. She asks if she can be of any help. Baze’s deep rumble answers. She should have realised he would not be far away.

 “Chirrut’s drawing on the Force. Normally this wouldn’t be a problem. But there’s a reason he’s taken so long.” He looks at Chirrut strapped into his chair. Bodhi is fussing at something behind it. Chirrut nods in reply then turns back to the screen where a complex electrical diagram appears. Jyn wonders if he can somehow ‘see’ it, he seems to be looking at it so intently. Baze goes on, “There is no energy available to him from a planet full of people, plants, animals, like before. Nothing nearby,” and here he looks again at Chirrut who shakes his head without turning, before adding “we assume. A nice fat star cruiser full of living things would be good.” Jyn still looks bemused. “Life. It generates the Force.” Her eyes raise. This is the most she’s ever heard Baze say. She’d always got the impression Baze didn’t quite believe Chirrut and his connection to the Force. Was he now some sort of acolyte? Was Chirrut a secret Jedi in hiding? That would be ironic, their paralysed knight. Or perhaps his recent incapacity has concentrated his innate skills? She narrows her eyes, staring at Chirrut’s back as if she can find answers there.

Instead he gives her an actual one, again without turning. “No. I am not one of them - but it is true, I am stronger with the Force now.” Baze is looking between them, leaning comfortably against a protruding bulkhead, one knee up, working on something in his hands with a small knife, completely unfazed by this private conversation between Chirrut and Jyn.  Uncomfortable with all the mysticism, Jyn’s hand goes to her chest as if of its own accord, to clench at something. This connection to living things is something Jyn has always known about but never considered deeply. Some of the more disconnected things her mother said pop into her mind, strung together across time to make a now consistent whole. But Jyn doesn’t have time for a lesson on the workings of the Force, she thinks, save that for later.

She plasters a determined smile across her face, and walks across to see what the hell Bodhi and Chirrut are up to and why this is taking them so long. But looking doesn’t really provide answers – there is a complex harness holding Chirrut to his chair, binding his forehead to the head rest, an unintelligible collection of things on the table in front of him, many of which she recognises but can’t put into context, and that damned complicated diagram on the monitor.

 “Does that help?” she asks, gesturing to the chair.

 “It seems to, we get marginally more power this way.” Jyn has a flashback to a dark dripping place, flickering overhead lights, a man bound to a chair, screams. She gulps, looks away.

 “So,” she steadies her voice, “are you nearly ready? What do you want us to do?”

Bodhi crinkles his brow, looking up from his position low on the ground, where he is still fiddling with something below the chair. “We need everyone.”

 “Yes, but what do we do?” Chirrut starts to say something but it is difficult to understand now his jaw is held shut by the harness. Another flash of memory and Jyn is a small girl, sitting with her mother on the bedroom floor, their arms locked together, facing each other, as her mother sways to and fro, chanting that mantra she always used, with the difficult words in the funny language. Jyn lays a hand on his shoulder, gives it a small squeeze. “It’s all right. I know what to do.”

Everything has been moved to the outer room where they are going to make the hull breach. Jyn has asked why they can’t use the breach they already fixed but both K and Bodhi go off into long and impassioned explanations as to exactly why this will not work. Although she understands only partially, she does not argue. A good leader knows when to trust the expert advice of her team. The room has been sealed off with a video link in place so they can see what’s happening inside. Bodhi explains that they’ve decided not to bother with trying to put a camera outside. For a moment Jyn is unsure whether Chirrut will need it to see what he is doing, then remembers that he is blind anyway. She’s so used to him ‘seeing’ things with his mind that she’d forgotten again.

But she, Bodhi and the rest of the crew certainly need to watch and she’s glad K set it up. She can see on the feed the comms unit sitting on a table in there, looking like a kid’s construction. It’s a rough dish made out of a lopsided frame covered with taut, reflective material salvaged from two high viz safety suits, taped to a base and what looks like a ball and socket joint from a thigh salvaged from K’s unwanted body. Jyn now understands that the dish doesn’t have to be robust because it is being deployed into the emptiness of space, but it does have to be moveable. There is a small servo motor attached to arms that move the dish left, right and up and down. There is also the trailing wire that will lead to the communications system inside the Cube. It is this fiddly connecting up process that has had Chirrut struggling in practice runs. The whole thing has to collapse small enough to thread through the small hull breach and then be erected and put together by Chirrut. Now she’s seeing it, what they’re asking him to do is incredible, impossible. How had she not seen it sooner? No wonder she’s been having misgivings. It’s going to be a complete disaster. Taking herself firmly in hand, she decides her place is not in here catastrophizing. She needs to concentrate on what she can do.

Jyn places nearly the entire crew to sit outside the prep room in a large circle, with two people at the door and through into the room. She makes them link up their hands to create an unbroken loop out, around and back in to the room again.

Someone jokes “This is just like being back in school.” There are some chuckles but mostly people are too tense. Jyn places the last two of her people inside the room close enough to touch Chirrut, so that the Force can flow through him.

 “Everyone understands electrical circuits. It’s like that,” Jyn explains as she settles people into the loop. And it’s not a bad analogy, she thinks, with Chirrut the bulb ‘lighting up’ when they close the circuit. When they are ready, at a nod from Baze they begin chanting.

Earlier, Chirrut explained to Baze that the chanting isn’t strictly necessary for the energy flow but that it helps to give people something on which to focus. He also explains that the Force’s energy doesn’t use the body’s own electrical nervous system, so that it doesn’t matter if the crew closest to him holds onto Chirrut’s paralysed limbs, the flow of the Force will still work.

After a shaky start, Jyn’s voice rings out firmly from where she stands, at the back of the circle, with a view of one of the monitors so she can track progress. People start to really concentrate. She finds her thoughts wandering though as she stares at the monitor. All these weeks of practice at mediation haven’t just paid off for the peace of mind of individual crew members, it’s made them good at this. She brings her attention back to her chanting but then loses it again as she walks to the doorway and peers in at Bodhi. He nods. It’s working. She goes back to watch the monitor with the video feed. She can now see shapes moving. She’d known he could do it but somehow seeing it like this is fascinating. Chirrut is able to move the objects as well as enlarge the hole he’s made through the outer hull. Turning again to the crew, she tries to block everything out but the chanting. It is all she can hear, their mantra, soft, repeated, now rising a bit louder, now softer, but always at the same tempo, being led by Chirrut’s two disciples. She can hear their deep regular voices. She has placed them at either side of the circle knowing, from listening to them take meditation classes, that their calm familiarity would be the drivers of this vocal orchestra.

I’m getting distracted again, Jyn thinks, not even sure if she’s been chanting. She takes up the chant with new vigour: “He is one with the Force and the Force is with him. We are one with the Force and the Force is with us.” People have started to rock from side to side in time with the mantra. She finds herself mirroring the movement even though she’s not part of the circle.

At first, it all goes well but then they come to a block. The objects start to falter as Chirrut tries to hold up the assembly he’s put together outside the wall while connecting it to wires that feed back into the room. He nearly drops the assembly, it wobbles alarmingly which Jyn can see through the camera K has set up directly facing the hull breach. If he does drop it, because they have no means of outside propulsion, the assembly will simply move off with the momentum it has been given and pass beyond the reach of Chirrut within some unknown timeframe.

Baze wants to call a halt. He is now holding up an almost unconscious Chirrut who has slipped down the chair who whispers “No, I can go on.”

 “We need more energy,” says Baze, “or he’s going to collapse.”

 “And we’re going to lose it,” Jyn hears K’s voice. She knows he’s been guiding Chirrut through, talking to him in a low monotone the entire time, like he has every practice, but she is surprised how desperate he sounds. He’s going to survive no matter what, as he’s usually only too ready to tell people. Not knowing if it’s going to help, but knowing she has to do something, Jyn steps carefully over the two crew members wedged in the doorway.

 “Here, Jyn, over here.” It’s Bodhi and he’s sitting down in the middle of the cramped room, inside the last bit of the circle. “This is the best place for us to splice ourselves in. We mustn’t break the contact. Hurry.” She squashes down next to him and they join hands. With the other she reaches out to grasp Chirrut’s foot next to that of Befrik, who she’s now facing and is already gripping the other leg. 

She turns to Qi Ro-lu and says “Ready?” Qi Ro-lu swallows, nods, then lifts her hand off at the same time Jyn places hers onto Chirrut.  Jyn smiles at her and looks across at Bodhi who has his free hand holding Qi Ro-lu’s leg. Why didn’t I put a smaller man in here, Jyn thinks, as Befrik tries to lean out of the way while still wrapping one large hand around Chirrut’s other leg. She had wanted two solid people in here as the first connection to Chirrut. But her discomfort at being pressed so close to the others is short lived. They are now joined, Jyn to Chirrut and Bodhi, Bodhi to Qi Ro-lu and then on to next Rogue out past the door. The circle is complete. They shuffle around a bit until Qi Ro-lu can grab a hold of Bodhi’s hand so he can let go of her leg and no one is either too crushed or having to stretch out uncomfortably. And it is done. Jyn lets out a slow lungful of air, unaware that she’d been holding it in, and joins in the chant. There is a palpable boost of power. Everyone can feel it, a warmth first in their hands and then through their whole bodies. They sit a little less hunched. Their voices, which had been gradually flagging, call out louder now, more confident. Jyn is one with the Force and the Force is with her.

Jyn isn’t aware that she is the one making the difference though, she’s new to the circle. She just assumes new blood has helped people to get their second wind. The movement, the mantra, is hypnotic. She loses all sense of time, becomes only the chant, the hand, the foot. Chirrut knows though, can feel her unique power filling him with renewed vigour. He finishes connecting up the dish with ease and soon it is all done, the dish installed, the leads coming through the wall to the room, the breach sealed. But the final effort must be too much for him. Baze shoots up from his position where he’s been closely monitoring Chirrut and is hastily unstrapping him. He lifts him up as if he weighs nothing, shouts at people that they are done and to make way, and he’s striding out of there carrying an unconscious Chirrut. People’s initial elation is tempered by concern which dissipates as they see Jyn and Bodhi walk out of the room, drained but smiling in triumph. K’s voice over all the consoles calling out that he is starting to hail on all frequencies also helps. It’s something Jyn hadn’t really thought was going to happen. She is also surprised at how spent she feels, her limbs just flat, slow to respond to move, like the air is solid and she has to press through it. Everyone must feel the same - about all anyone does is to drag themselves – some even stay sitting and just shuffle - to their sleeping positions. By general consensus all non-vital tasks are stood down for the night.

With their comms now functional, as he’d announced, K begins the process of transmitting through as many channels as he calculates their home-made dish can handle before its structure is damaged. He explains that although miniscule, they are actually transmitting electromagnetic rays which obviously break down the material they travel through, albeit in this case extremely slowly. “From the atomic structure of the dish material and the rate I am transmitting, I calculate it will break down in 5 years, 6 months and 16.35 days.”

Jyn is the only person listening. She says “I can live with that,” aware of the irony and that K is not. She knows their food will have run out long before then. She notices that no one is sleeping alone tonight and a lot of people seem to be lying touching each other who wouldn’t ordinarily. She wonders if this is an aftermath of them all being connected, a subconscious muscle memory, and definitely solid proof to even the least of their members that every one of them had been needed to solve this, their final problem. Or perhaps they are still simply sharing their energy – the Force -  with each other. Most people are barely conscious let alone capable of listening and taking in what K is droning on about. That doesn’t seem to faze him though and his monotone becomes the backdrop to the best night’s sleep they’ve all had in weeks. She snuggles up to Cassian, feeling his slow regular breath, and falls asleep whispering in his ear about what they’ve just done and how proud she is of her Rogues.

In the morning, people are slow to wake. Jyn is reminded of back when they were all suffering from dehydration but this time it’s different. There is animated talking and laughter, despite the lethargy. Someone mentions ‘the miracle of the dish’ and she hears it several times. Jyn is amazed that these hard-bitten combat veterans are using such words. They have a celebratory communal thanksgiving breakfast. With slop being all there is to eat and water that tastes of plastic it’s not much of a feast. But most people are happy, if tired, like they have all ran a marathon the previous day. Instead of their allocated tasks, Jyn calls a general holiday after making a short toast thanking Chirrut (who is still closeted with a scowling Baze), K and Bodhi. Everyone drinks and, like guests after a wedding, they drift off in small groups to talk or fall back to sleep.

But life continues the next day as if nothing has changed. Except K drives the crew nuts by giving them updates on his estimates of how long it will take him to contact a planetary system capable of picking up their transmission, based on extrapolations of the finite routes of travel they may have been on, now that he can estimate their current speed and knowing how long they have been travelling. It goes on for hours. Everyone is buoyed up by the success but still drained by the sitting, the chanting, the hours of focused concentration, the unrelenting tension of the preceding weeks. Chirrut sleeps for 48 hours, guarded by a very touchy Baze whose surly demeanour does not change no matter how many times a crew member stops by to thank Chirrut and ask how he’s doing. Eventually Jyn sits two other people outside their room to stop them from being disturbed.

 

It takes six days. These are some of the hardest days they have to get through. Chirrut recovers and goes back to leading the daily meditation sessions which somehow morph into a morning and an evening session. He explains in the first session how they are all drained not just because of the energy they have shared and given to him through the Force. But because of a fundamental change at the atomic level – and here he becomes very metaphysical. Several people who are already lying down fall asleep. And this is all good, as Chirrut says. The meditation room remains peopled. Some find it relaxing, to others it’s now the only place where they can sleep. It is as if the rules for normal social engagement don’t apply here in this room. People are allowed to touch each other. People are allowed to sleep here, any time of the day or night. Crew members come and go, always speaking in hushed voices, entering the room quietly, touching others there as they come in and pass them to find a spot for themselves. And virtually everyone is there for the morning and evening mediations.

Jyn finds herself seeking out Cassian and now Bodhi, physically needing their support, even though Cassian is still unconscious. At first, she tries to remain on the edge of the meditation room when she first arrives, but people just move out her way, reach up to greet her with a touch, hold her arm, touch her cheek, pull her gently down for a semi hug or a kiss. It is as if everyone wants and expects to be able to touch her. She notices it doesn’t apply to anyone else, they seem to need to touch and be touched by only a few others, not everyone, when they enter. Bodhi is touched by many but not in the same way. Their touching of Jyn is almost reverential. It makes her feel uncomfortable the first time. But then she feels their attraction as she moves further into the room, needing to reply to all the greetings, to return the physical contact. She thinks the experience should leave her feeling drained but it doesn’t. She comes out of the room not vibrant with energy but always with an inner calm and peace that she has not known since childhood, a strong sense of home, of belonging. And this is the only way we can survive as a crew, she thinks, because the talk outside of the room is always; is there any news? How long do people think it will take? Will they be able to contact anyone who can answer? And even if they do, will it be the right people or will it be Imperial forces?  The true risk they are taking, the vulnerable situation they are in, is finally inescapable.

The meditation room seems to be a different place, a space of calm and acceptance and peace, where these questions are left behind, where people follow the chanting, the speaking, leaving their cares and worries, their petty rivalries, outside at the door. Tempers still fray outside. People stop doing their jobs, wander off neglecting them or leaving them unfinished. Those that are still diligent and try to lose themselves in work are outraged. Fights ensue, constant, acrimonious. There are black eyes and bloody noses but luckily nothing more serious. And miraculously people that are at each other’s throats outside of the Mediation Room – a place definitely deserving of proper nouns Jyn thinks - seem to lose all animosity when they enter it. She is amazed each time she sees former protagonists sitting next to each other touching, she sees it often enough for it not to be a coincidence. She decides she has no clue how people work and never will.

Chirrut refuses to leave the room. Baze is forced to move in as well, feeding and cleaning him behind a make shift screen. No one complains that the room is starting to smell. Jyn thinks that on Day Seven they are going to have to have a cleaning session and move out all the cushions, made up of people’s jackets and backpacks, and other things that have crept into the room, to give them and it an airing.

But on Day Six, at 16:45 hours when most people are sitting down eating slop, K suddenly starts speaking. Everyone is immediately quiet because he hasn’t said anything for days. “We’ve received a transmission. I have made contact. It’s an independent out post,” K rattles off the coordinates and name of the place. “I now know where we are.” He is asking for Jyn to tell him what to say in reply but no one can hear him because of the rejoicing, running around, leaping, shouting, hugs, kisses, pats on the back and general whoops of joy.

 

**Epilogue**

They are saved. Their rogue mission a success. The information inside the Cube’s Library files makes its way to the Rebels. It is critical in many ways to the downfall of Imperial forces all over the galaxy.

The Rogues are rescued, split up, with the able bodied mostly rejoining the Rebel Alliance, their unsanctioned mission forgiven after the destruction of the Death Star. The injured are shipped off to various Alliance medical facilities. But before this, before the Rogues allow themselves to be split up, they insist on holding a ceremonial burning of the crew members that they have lost. They won’t let anyone else attend, none of their rescuers, medical staff, no one but Rogues. They hold it on a high, bare summit towering above the small frontier town that was responsible for their rescue. They carry their dead crew members there themselves, despite their emaciated and in some cases wounded state. They will accept no help. Baze carries Chirrut. They even collect the tinder dry wood themselves, needed for the huge fire to burn the bodies.

Their rescuers are mystified as to why these people chose such a hard way to dispose of their dead. “They are crazy, these Rogues,” they say. They do not understand that after being stuck inside the Cube, they must be outside where there are no walls, where they can see the stars.

Bodhi uploads K into another droid so he can come too. It is not an Imperial KX Series Security droid, but a lowly maintenance droid. K is not at all happy but apparently decides not to complain. He misses the Cube. He is unusually silent, having explained early in the evening that the bodies of their fallen comrades have desiccated during their time in the vacuum and now require little fuel to burn down. He tells Cassian later that it he didn’t really understand why they wanted him there as it was a human thing. He admits that some human things he does not nor will ever understand but now accepts that this doesn’t mean they are unimportant.

They hold a silent vigil throughout their first night outside the Cube, the surprisingly small fire needed for the cremation gradually dying away, sparks fly up like offerings to the sky, the remnants of their comrades sink down into glowing coals. At dawn, when the sun’s first rays hit the horizon and light begins to spread across the hill, they make their way slowly down, each filled with their own thoughts. It hasn’t escaped Jyn’s awareness that up there, trapped in orbit forever, is the Cube, their prison, now a bizarre satellite to this far flung planet, the home of their blessed saviours.

Cassian has woken from his coma, unharmed, although not in time to attend the vigil on the hill.  Jyn comes back in the early morning to find him sitting up in the small hospital ward, looking haggard, but alert. The beard he’s grown over the weeks is his main concern, he keeps scratching it. She finds herself loitering at the door, suddenly shy. It is difficult to reconcile this woken, speaking Cassian to the person she has been talking to for all these weeks. He is asking the med staff something.

 “How long did you say I was out? What happened to the wave?”

 “I’m sorry captain, you’ll have to wait til your crew mates return.”

Then he sees who is at the door. “Jyn! What the hell happened? Why have I got a beard? This lug won’t tell me anything! Where _are_ we?” He looks so angry, confused, she wonders where to start. He must have seen the panic on her face or something, she thinks because she then hears him speaking much more sedately.

 “Thank you. I’ll be fine now. I’m sorry I said…”

 “That’s quite all right. You will feel disoriented for quite some time. Your mind may have been walking amongst the stars but your body has been living and experiencing all the things your crew has, stuck in that awful place.” Cassian is looking down now, subdued by the nurse’s words, fiddling with the cuff of his clean white hospital sleeping suit. “I’ll leave you to Leader Jyn,” the nurse concludes, slipping soundlessly out.

 “Yes, thank you.” The two hospital staff here were fantastic as they struggled to cope with their sudden arrival, and Jyn is very thankful for their calm efficiency. This is a mining colony so they are used to severe injuries and dealing with emergencies, but still, she hadn’t realised how soiled and smelly, bedraggled, scarred, strung out and emaciated they’d been until they’d been here amongst well fed, clean and smiling people. “I’m here Cassian.”

At her words, he sinks into his pillows, sliding a bit down the bed, and reaches out his hand. “Jyn. I remember… I think heard your voice. For a long time?” She walks to him and sits by the bed, taking his hand gently.

 “What?”

 “You. You were speaking to me. I feel like I’ve been listening to you for… I don’t know there’s no sense of time. But there was a ship, and a crew and they – we? – we were stuck on it. We couldn’t get off.  And...’ he pauses, frowning, “people kept fighting with each other… Did I make all this up?” his eyes look troubled, the brown smudges under them more prominent. He turns her hand palm up in his and looks intently at it. Jyn gulps. She feels like she has come to know him so well but has she, really? His intensity is making it difficult to breathe.

 “No. That’s all true. All though I’m not sure if you are remembering everything I was telling you that was happening, or – I started reading to you. Something I found in the archives. A journal, a log book from ages ago, by a captain whose ship and crew were lost like we were.” He’s turning her hand over and looking at the back of it, his fingers stroking it as if it’s some wondrous thing. He starts to lift it up to his lips and Jyn freezes. He stops and looks up at her. They stare at each other motionless like this, Jyn losing all awareness of time.

Clearing her throat, she decides to begin at the beach. She’s relieved but somehow disappointed when he drops their hands back to the bed covers. As she talks she feels his gaze on her. He listens and she again talks, but this time it is very different. Although he doesn’t interrupt she can hear him breathing more quickly when she talks about some of the difficult times. She finds it easier to talk looking at his chest, covered by the white sheet. All those hours, days she’d spent talking to him, touching his hair, snuggling next to him, and now here she is, shy and unable to look him in the eye. She feels the soft brush of his lips against her hand and turns. He is smiling, caressing her hand with his mouth.

 “You are so brave. I think I…”

 “I couldn’t have done it without you Cassian. You kept me sane, grounded. If I hadn’t had you to talk to I…” she has to stop because he’s pulled her to him and she’s now lying on his chest being thoroughly kissed.

When they walk out of the hospital building the next morning, Cassian’s arm around her shoulder, more for balance than support – he’s still feeling giddy but surprisingly energetic – the assembled Rogues turn and give a cheer. Jyn feels her face flush as Rogue after Rogue come up and clap Cassian on the back and congratulate him for sitting out their entire nightmare but still managing to snag their precious leader. Several threaten him with mortal wounding if he ever hurts Jyn. There is a lot of friendly teasing and laughter. They are saying goodbye to their injured mates as they are loaded into transports, and there is a steely quality to their farewells. A couple of times Jyn sees someone walk off to be alone for a minute. And if they come back with slightly puffy eyes, sniffing, who is she to comment? She is proud of her Rogues, what they all came through, achieved. And knows she will always share that connection with them, no matter how far away they are from each other is or how much time passes.

 

Cassian feels it too, even if he has different memories of it. Together they manage to fill their lives with love, even as they become trusted leaders in the Rebel Alliance. They bring up their two daughters under the watchful eye of doting grandparents Chirrut and Baze, from whom they learn from one about the power of the Force, and from the other, how to fight dirty.

Although the rest of the Rogues go off to continue with their lives, some of them remain or drift together in pairs or threesomes. Somehow each finds friendships with other non-Rogues are never quite the same. Each takes with them a radiating sun emblem, some wear theirs, others only get them out to look at in secret. Once a year, on a certain date, any that are able, get together around a bonfire and pass around a flask. They don’t take a big drink, just enough to wet their mouths and sprinkle around on the earth and in the fire. Those who weren’t there are not invited. This angers some of their loved ones over the years, but most forgive even if they don’t understand.

Whenever any of the now grizzled and old Rogues are in the sector they all think of as the planet with the satellite, they will insist on taking a detour to land at a certain place, a bare hill above an impoverished mining colony, and will take a walk by themselves, holding a small, faded and somewhat frayed piece of material with them or pinned to their clothing. They will stay out there all night, standing inexplicably on a small rise and staring intently up into the void for a long time, lips moving.

And always no matter where they are, at least once a day each Rogue will sit and meditate, if only for a few minutes. If anyone is close enough will hear the old soldier chant as they sway slightly from side to side: He is one with the Force and the Force is with him. We are one with the Force and the Force is with Us, repeated over and over.


End file.
